We live in a time marked by fear, where blades seem to cut through the body that we have become accustomed to perceive as reality. Our existence appears to be increasingly unreal as we are constantly shown that reality may be a comfortable illusion to which we cling anxiously. And from these cracks emerge ambiguous, fluid and opaque entities that we don’t yet know, but which are growing ever more present: monsters.
As embodiments of contemporary fears and anxieties, the monsters and caves from which they emerge can also make us aware of the limits of our knowledge, inviting us to embrace the unknown. The figures and landscapes that inhabit Jonathan Uliel Saldanha’s twilight universe confront reality in order to translate empathetic ways of inhabiting the planet, where other ways of being become possible and open up before us. The strange presences that emerge in the darkness of this world are beacons that enlighten, resist fear and anxiety, and seduce us into the multiple alternatives that surround us.
–João Laia
