A Festa 1942

This dreamlike painting by Antonio Dacosta is made with soft colours that meet like memories, never quite sharp, always blending. It’s a world of translucent washes, where forms emerge and dissolve into each other. The creamy white ox, adorned with ribbons, is a beautiful ghostly presence in the composition. He is at once substantial, but also a permeable shape, the artist has allowed the white underlayer of paint to be seen through the subsequent colours, creating a sense of depth and shadow. The eye is drawn to this, and around the other forms, in a fluid exchange, much like the act of remembering. It’s a painting that embraces the act of looking as a form of ongoing discovery. The work recalls the poetic and fantastical universe of Marc Chagall, who was fascinated by folklore, memory and childhood experience. Like Chagall, Dacosta is unconcerned with pure representation and uses art as a way of capturing the essence of what he sees. His focus on a personal process creates a more complex, multi-layered kind of seeing.