Auto shares certain visual elements, such as the mountains and the black silhouette, with the series Gauguin and Passeio [Walk], made at around the same time. This way of working in series, which characterised all of Álvaro Lapa’s work, reveals that the artist considered the act of painting as a process and an experience rather than as an end in itself. Each sequence of works is defined through a set of variations around a limited number of themes and forms. In this series in particular, numerous variables of the symbol ‘mountain’ are lined up over the drawing of a grid. They proliferate and are articulated in relation to the position of the black figure and the empty brown ground. From the grid of mountains, one can spy another silhouette, this time of a seated figure, reminiscent of the series Gauguin. In the exhibition held at CAM in 1999, Auto-Retratos da Colecção [Self Portraits from the Collection], this work was included as an innovative exercise in self-representation. “You only create what you already are”, Lapa observed in an interview. Auto is an example of the methodology of an artist who searches for himself in all he does; who identifies with what he creates, reconstructing images generated by his experiences and his memories.

AS