I recently visited Leiriense sculptor Mário Lopes (1982). The studio, a set of two or three old spaces, rebuilt and unified by him, is very cool. In one area he works on huge stones, with cranes and tools everywhere, in another he shows around a dozen large sculptures. They have the necessary space between them to present themselves one by one and are distinct enough to be appreciated independently.
I felt compelled to try to understand them but I was having some trouble finding a similar influence, aesthetic or concern. I asked him to choose art from an ancient culture and he answered prehistoric megalithic art. AND voilà, my understanding of his work changed in that very moment. From then on, all the pieces seemed to me like dolmens, dolmens or monolithic circles, in a version good XXI century.
They are abstract in nature because they do not need to show anything concrete. The scale, the intrinsic beauty of the material and the finish that the author gives them are enough to dazzle us. We see simple geometric shapes, strangely balanced but precisely sculpted. Are beautiful.
I like having people like these in Leiria. Mário is a simple but sensitive guy, who takes pleasure in his work. He lives and works comfortably, which makes me believe that he will be here for many good years producing.
His technical qualities do not go unnoticed, and as a result, a good portion of his time is spent sculpting for other authors. In my hands, when I visited, I had a giant block of marble that I was sculpting for an Iranian artist to exhibit in Sweden.
Jokingly, I would say that he is the sculptor of sculptors…
