Homenagem a Fernão Mendes Pinto 1957

This is a drawing titled 'Homenagem a Fernão Mendes Pinto’ by Antonio Areal. It’s rendered in graphite, I think, with an amazing range of tones and textures. The piece seems to emerge from a process of layering and accumulation. Look at the top left; the artist coaxes out these solid forms, almost like soft, melting monuments from the dark depths of the graphite. Areal has this way of teasing out volume using subtle gradations in tone, it’s like he’s sculpting with light and shadow. The whole landscape is built from these careful markings, these iterative and almost meditative actions which echo across the page. It reminds me of Max Ernst and his surreal landscapes. But where Ernst uses frottage to bring out the unconscious, Areal seems to build up his forms through a process of sustained concentration. Ultimately, it's this ambiguity that makes the work so compelling, leaving us to wander and wonder in its graphite-hazed world.