Teresa Murta: A Taste of Doubt

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  Nicodim Gallery

  On view through Nov 25

  Source for Teresa Murta: A Taste of Doubt
  Oct 15 – Nov 25, 2026

  “The eye is not a passive instrument. It is a body moving through what it sees.” Teresa Murta’s paintings begin at the point where harmony is never simply a state of order, but something that becomes perceptible only when it is threatened. Her paintings operate on the verge of collapse, introducing elements that intrude the composition and by doing so, unsettle the viewer’s own position. Murta’s compositions inhabit a narrow threshold between attraction and disturbance, seducing the eye through colour, texture and the sensuality of their forms only to withdraw the promise of harmony they initially seemed to offer. Earthy tones establish a seemingly stable ground while sudden intrusions of pink, blue, orange or acid green threaten a possible sense of familiarity. These colours appear almost foreign to the world they inhabit, yet their disappearance would be equally unsettling. Without them, the painting would settle into agreement; with them, it remains alive. What emerges is not chaos opposed to order, but a fragile chaosmos : an organisation that is constantly being organised and disorganised at once. Murta’s paintings do not offer the viewer a hierarchy through which their elements can be comfortably understood. Horizontal and vertical movements coexist; bodies seem to hang, collapse, lie down or surrender to gravity, while other forms stretch, bend and flow as if propelled by invisible forces. The image begins to acquire a choreography of its own. Nothing appears entirely still, even when nothing can be said to be moving. Forms seem to be caught in the middle of transformations that have no clear beginning and no foreseeable end. A body becomes a landscape, a landscape becomes a piece of flesh, flesh becomes vegetation, vegetation becomes paint. Recognition never arrives at a final destination.

  Schedule

  October 15 – November 25, 2026

  Plan exhibition visit

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