Let me go back and remind myself why I began this painting project...
Without really noticing what I was doing, when I was about 12 years old I would find myself reading people's palms. I felt attracted by those "lines" and "drawings" that seemed like a kind of writing all of its own that revealed what had happened to the people's lives and gave a glimpse of their desires and personalities.
I was born and raised in a completely different kind of surrounding, where this reality was pushed to the side-lines and it was difficult for me to protect myself. I silently went my own way, misunderstood by many, but I could not turn my back on what lived and existed in my inner soul!
Because of these circumstances I lived a kind of double life. I was torn between two realities: an uncomprehending social life and the understanding of revelations from a different world.
Later, I learned tarot and once again the drawings crossed paths to reveal happenings and lives' paths.
Now, after all these years, I have been allowed to fulfil a long-standing desire by starting this painting project about tarot.
The 22 greatest Tarot Arcanes.
I began by shuffling the 22 cards and then spread them face down on a table and picked one at random. The first card I turned over was "The Lovers".
Thus began my inner adventure...
As the paining progressed, I grew to understand the extraordinary power of the cards. The constant, intense dialogues I had with them were enriching and I became more aware, living in both worlds at the same time.
One night the cards appeared to me in my dreams. They were huge, giant-sized, and they floated as if dancing towards me and arranged themselves in an order to be read. They clearly did not want to be ignored! I was surprised...
They took on a life of their own! And in my real life, too. I had to struggle with difficult, painful situations. Events unfolded in line with the card I was painting at the time.
I was deeply shaken by this revelation.
I have to confess I almost gave up ...
What made me keep painting them and recreating them was that by living this reality ... for instance the "hanged man". The traditional representation of the hanged man (the man hanged by his foot, head down) seemed to be quite out of date for the symbolism involved; it needed to be brought up into our days according to my time and experience.
With the knowledge we have today about the solar plexus and how important it is, the centre of the "body" of this figure became the centre of attention.
I respected and I always took into consideration the symbolism regarding the colours, numbering and sacred geometry, it is all there! I did, however, several times choose to hide some symbols and colours, which are out of sight underneath the painting. As it was an occult work with artistic freedom, I decided to play with these veils as I created it. I slowly realised I was facing a huge challenge...
What about the painting? The beauty of the images and the purity with which they appeared in my head... How could I transfer them onto the canvas? How could I remain faithful to them? And how to keep artistic coherence in the work?
Once again I found myself painfully aware of the restrictions in the matter. I had to come up with a way of making something invisible to the naked eye.
I was committed! It took two years of hard work.
Close to the end, as I was giving my everything to the painting, concentrating on hands/brushes and paints, in a constant state of alert, having to make decisions about every brush-stroke, something happened that I had never experienced, making this into an unforgettable experience! Suddenly, looking at the frenzy of the painting that would appear out of nothing, I was overcome by a complete sense of inner peace, a deep sense of love draped itself over me like a cloak that I could feel throughout my body. Because I felt it through my body, perhaps the word ecstasy is the best way to describe what I felt.
The revelation I felt at that moment of love awakened in me a sense of gratefulness and realization of an ancient teaching of "Acceptance".
So often I have suffered for not doing justice to the Beauty I was given to see ... Now having accepted the difficulties and living such experiences of life ... deciphering and collaborating with their teachings, I could produce these paintings ... A new path opened up for me...the finished work was Begun.
Like in the madman's letter...he is the beginning and the end! That is how I feel inside.
Mónica de Morais
8 April 2009
Vou recordar o que me levou a iniciar este projecto de pintura...
Sem consciência alguma do que se passava comigo, aos 12 anos de idade, dava por mim a ler as mãos das pessoas. A atracção que sentia por aqueles "riscos" e "desenhos", faziam aparecer uma escrita muito própria, e revelavam os acontecimentos das suas vidas, bem como os seus desejos e personalidades.
Tendo nascido num meio totalmente oposto a tudo isto, em que esta realidade era marginalizada, foi difícil proteger-me. Mas em silêncio fui percorrendo um caminho solitário, incompreensível para muitos. Mas não conseguia ignorar o que dentro de mim vivia e existia!
Devido a estas circunstâncias tive uma espécie de vida dupla. A minha vida decorria entre duas realidades: a vida social com a sua incompreensão, e a compreensão perante revelações de um mundo diferente.
Mais tarde fui aprender o tarot, novamente os "desenhos" se cruzavam revelando acontecimentos e caminhos de vida.
Agora, passados todos estes anos permiti-me realizar e cumprir um desejo antigo. Iniciando este projecto de pintura sobre o tarot.
Os 22 arcanos maiores do tarot.
Comecei por baralhar as 22 cartas, depois espalhei-as na mesa com as figuras voltadas para baixo, retirei uma ao acaso. A primeira carta a sair foi "Os Amantes".
Começava o que viria a ser a minha aventura interior...
Á medida que a pintura avançava, percebi o extraordinário poder que as cartas continham. Os diálogos constantes e intensos que mantinha com elas eram enriquecedores, e assim ganhei uma maior consciência, de estar a viver nos dois mundos em simultâneo.
Uma noite enquanto dormia, as cartas apareceram-me no sonho. Eram enormes, com dimensões de "gigantes" flutuavam como numa dança na minha direcção, e colocaram-se numa ordem de leitura. Claramente não queriam ser esquecidas! Fui surpreendida...
Ganharam vida! E na minha vida real também. Fui deparada com dolorosas e difíceis situações. Os acontecimentos desenrolavam-se em sintonia com a carta que estava a pintar no momento.
Fiquei profundamente abalada com tal revelação.
Confesso! Quase desisti ...
O que me levou a continuar a pintá-las foi a vontade de as recriar e atualizar de acordo com a minha própria época e vivência, pois ao viver esta realidade... e vou dar como exemplo a carta do "Dependurado": A representação tradicional do dependurado, (o Homem pendurado pelo pé e de cabeça para baixo) pareceu-me pouco actual para a carga simbólica que esta acarreta.
Com o actual conhecimento sobre o plexo solar e a importância que tem, o centro do "corpo" desta figura tornou-se no foco.
Respeitei e levei sempre em consideração a sua simbologia: Quer nas cores, numeração quer na geometria sagrada, está tudo lá! Porém, escolhi em várias alturas ocultar alguns símbolos e cores, ficando estas por baixo da própria pintura. Sendo um trabalho de teor oculto e de liberdade artística, optei por jogar com estes "véus "para a sua realização. Devagar apercebi-me que estava perante um grande desafio...
E na Pintura? A beleza das imagens e a pureza com que apareciam dentro da minha cabeça... Como colocá-las na tela? Como ser-lhes fiel? E Como manter coerência plástica no trabalho artístico?
Uma vez mais deparei-me dolorosamente com as restrições da matéria. E confrontei-me com a realização dum invisível para o visível.
Estava comprometida comigo! Foram dois anos de trabalho ardente.
Já próximo do fim, estando eu numa entrega total à pintura, e envolvida entre mãos/pincéis e tintas. Em estado de alerta constante! Com opções a tomar a cada instante nas pinceladas a executar...
Acontece o que eu nunca tinha experienciado antes. Tornando-se assim o que viria a ser uma experiencia inesquecível! Num repente, ao olhar aquele frenesim da pintura que ia nascendo do nada, uma calma se apoderou de mim, fui tomada de um profundo Prazer Amoroso, que se fez sentir ao nível do meu corpo. E porque foi sentido no corpo, a palavra êxtase é talvez a que se aproxima mais para descrever o que senti.
A revelação sentida desse momento amoroso, despertou-me a gratidão e a integração de um ensinamento antigo da "Aceitação".
Tantas vezes sofri por não conseguir fazer justiça à Beleza que me era dada a ver... Agora ao ter-me aceite com as dificuldades, e a viver tais experiencias de vida... descodificando e colaborando com os seus ensinamentos, pude realizar estas pinturas ... Um novo caminho se abriu para mim...o trabalho finalizado era agora Iniciado.
Como na carta do louco...ele é o princípio e o fim! Assim é dentro de mim.
Mónica de Morais
8 De Abril 2009
TAROT VISITED BY ART
by Jorge Guimarães
The history of Mankind, in its totality, bequeathed to us two fundamental games, namely the one of War and the one of Destiny.
Chess (the game of War) expresses, by the force of the mind, the capacity that one has over a total sum of possibilities so great, that it exhausts all possible calculations. There is no formula for winning over, that is, defeating the opponent - defeating him mentally, thus completely.
Defeat in chess is as total as is the end event of the game itself: the King falls over in the square in which he finds himself. To play chess is to involve oneself in a war, which is another form of playing politics, which, in turn, is another form of diplomacy. But the objective is only one: that of dominating the adversary and defeating him. To win the war and to win it politically and diplomatically. Victory in chess is never partial, incomplete or dubious. In truth, the fall of the King is the death of the King. But the one who wins, wins with his life intact. Thus it can be said that chess is the art of war, and that war is also the art of life. Or the art of survival.
Tarot (the game of Destiny) is the other game discovered by Mankind. It deals with destiny. It relates to death and its time-span, to fortune and its changes, to love and its imprecisions, to happiness and its foolishness, to occurrences and its interconnections, to mishaps and its intervals - in other words, to the enduring uncertainty of life, of friendship and treachery, of the good and the treacherous encounter, of disgrace or of glory, of desperation or of relief, of life's battles won and lost. The presupposition of Tarot is Destiny, not the one shaped by will but the one carried out by predestination. Destiny is the box containing the map of the Future, of a future that is already written and exists, which is the Present, and that already existed yesterday, which is the Past.
A predestined future, a history already written. A sealed envelope. This Future is there, closed in this box, with the charts where the lives of humans are already predefined. What then allows one to make a free choice? In what manner can we hold in our hands our destiny by way of intention and through the effort we can apply to in our actions, so as to go against the will of Fatum - this Destiny? Here, pluritheistic and monotheistic religions are precisely divided between the fatalism of the predefined destiny, on one hand, and the shaping of destiny through the wanting and the knowledge, on the other. To be or not to be the builders of our future, the architects of our cathedral - as Shakespeare once said, equating the eternal doubt - that is the question. However, the simplification of the answers is always contradicted by life itself that is by Man / Woman, always so ready to shape schemes or to discard them. We will then have: a) if there is a method to forecast the future, why don't we attain it? and b) if, on the contrary, we are able to shape it by wish, why is wish always being subverted? Tarot deals exactly with Destiny. Of the future that is already written. Of that which is destined to occur. Tarot has 78 cards in his pack, of which 22 make up his Major Arcanes. It is exactly in the intercrossing in this Game that we are shown Destiny, by way of those 22 figures that symbolise it in its most evident categories. Mónica de Morais ventured along a path that is not new only because there is nothing new under the path of the Sun, but which is quite original. Even more important than its originality is its depth. In these 22 Arcane designs, Mónica de Morais proposes to venture along the route of their symbology and their tarotian symbology is, in itself, the symbolic universe. In this way she travels the Universe and its exemplary symbols: Man and Woman. She adopts, specifically for these two principal Actors, those of Human Comedy, an architectonic framework that is the scene in which they move in and where they predominate through geometric compositions that refuse Chance, but rather, belong to guess work. Man is inseparable from his house, whether it's the celestial dome, or the colonnade of the temple, or the seat of the judge, door, column, clock, or whatever. The living elements of that human or divine liturgy, also move through the figures of some animals ancestrally linked to the path of mankind, gaining ideogramatical aspects in its mental life.
It is in this crossroad, this terrible crossroad, the crossroad of the reading and the interpretation of the major symbols, that Mónica de Morais dares to descend, and to ascend in her investigation which she, through her profound and esoteric work, transforms into exegesis. Firstly because to make such a statement it has to be done with talent: the hand that delineates these blades has to be firm and intuitive. The hand is an extension of the mind and, more than that, it is an extension of the heart, obviously as seen through the Egyptian concept. It is necessary that the Artist has the notion of the movements of the body, of its fluids, of its paradigm, of its cosmology. It is also necessary that the artist uses colour in order to make the statement, because colour is itself the veil of the apparition. Furthermore, it is also necessary to have grace, which is the uterine mystery, and candour, which is the left hand of feeling, the inverted reading of beauty. It will be, then, with these attributes, that Mónica de Morais will be able to write to us in 22 large Paintings her 22 Major Arcanes, allowing us the interpenetration of her judgements, and, guided by her hand, we will travel through this obscure pathway of unrevealed Time.
Consequently, in this patrimony of paintings, Mónica is more than the magnificent Artist which is before us. She is also a spiritual guide and, in this good hermetic tradition, and also a guide of the symbolic and of the esoteric, why not? - an affable priestess.
This was a thorny, difficult and abysmal route, taken in the chronology of these Major Pictures. But it was travelled with resolution, talent, and particularly with the discernment of someone who relies on instinct, in the subconscious, in the invisible side, or even in that absolutely inexhaustible capacity that is the Human Being, woman or man. More than being the measure of all things, it is the material and spiritual reproduction of the entire Universe, of all Universes.
I think, and I don't know if I'm thinking wrongly, that only well after arriving at the end of this journey, did Mónica de Morais understand what an immense undertaking she had set herself, and where, similarly to what happens in chess, she would either call or suffer checkmate. But, as can be seen, she won this game well. She had the magic power of transforming an adventure about the veils of Destiny into a well thought board with the movements of her will.