The Exhibition Waves and Whirpools was opened in the Municipal Gallery of Porto on the 12th of September and will last until the 15th of November. Curator Martha Kirszenbaum presents the works of Luís Lázaro Matos. The exposition includes seven diptych paintings and four tondos.

As visitors can learn from the exhibition description, all the pictures were inspired by seven songs released by the artist: The Waves of Lisbon, Sea Turtle, Laika Surfing Cosmic Waves, Red Sea, Whirlpools, Bermuda Triangle, and Tsunami. The paintings have the same names as the titles of the songs.



The aesthetic of all the exhibited pictures is similar. In all of them, the artist uses bright colours, big brush strokes, and black contour. All pictures refer to the sea and life in the ocean, and viewers can see in them elaborated references to ocean/sea mythology.

On each picture, the viewer can notice a persona that can be interpreted as the artist himself. All the creatures that appear in the paintings seem to create music: singing, playing keyboards, striking the guitar. On some of them, the musician is presented as a human, on the others as water animals, such as a turtle or a stingray.

The representation that ties the series together is a rope that passes through different elements of images, visually tangling them together. It's not a sailing rope as one could expect from the marine topic of the paintings, but rather an electric cable. The cord can be interpreted as an inseparable connection of these paintings with music, and a musician’s life. The audio jack not only connects all pictures (and instruments presented on them) but is also a visual reminder about the musical inspiration for this series.


On one of the diptychs, aliens appear. They sit on a palm tree singing or saying something into the microphone. That representation may not seem to suit the others. However, it's connected with the author's fascination with conspiracy theories. The artist doesn't hide his interest in the secrets of the Bermuda Triangle. The curator, in a very interesting way, composed the exhibition in the mezzanine of the gallery, which has a triangle shape, creating a space where visitors can be caught by the waves of the art.



The series can be interpreted as an allegorical self-portrait of the painter. However, the life dictated by the ocean, inseparable from the sea can be familiar to many Portuguese people. In this country, for ages life and culture were connected with life on the sea. For sailors, fishermen, and nowadays even surfers, the water can be a determinant of the rhythm of life.

Another important part of the exhibition are four tondos that are situated on the gallery walls. They are much smaller than the big paintings, so it's easy to miss them. All of them present the moon and at first sight they seem to be identical, but they have a few differences. The tondos represent the four different phases of the moon: first quarter, full moon, last quarter, and the new moon. When it comes to the ocean, moon phases are very important. They're responsible for creating tides.