Antiga Capela da Misericórdia de Barcelos 2003

This is a stained glass window, made by Eduardo Nery in the Antiga Capela da Misericórdia de Barcelos. It’s a rainbow waterfall of color, where light pours through the panes of glass. Imagine Nery piecing this all together like a puzzle. He's probably thinking about how light will hit each colored section, how they'll bleed into one another. I get the sense that he wants to trap light, to hold onto its fleeting beauty. The rainbow stripes are almost architectural; they remind me of Frank Lloyd Wright. But, here, instead of brick and stone, it's colored light. Each square and rectangle feels like a brushstroke— bold, and deliberate. I see a conversation happening here, between Nery, Wright, and maybe even Matisse with his chapel windows. That’s what artists do, right? We riff off each other, remixing ideas across time. And like any good conversation, it's open-ended, full of possibilities.