The work of Sérgio Pombo has «two noteworthy aspects: one is more figurative and the other can be related to an expressive system of forces» as Jorge Molder said in a catalogue from 2001 («Projecto da exposição» in Sérgio Pombo, 2001, CAM, p. 5). In the 1970s, that greater figurative aspect is dominant, under the influence of Pop Art.

 

In these works, two small sculptures of female figures in bikinis oscillate on the plinth corner – in Figura Feminina na Água [Female Figure in the Water], on a vertically drawn parallelepiped, and in Figura Feminina na Praia [Female Figure on the Beach], on a horizontally drawn plinth.

 

The coexistence of a geometric form and a human body that inhabits its inhospitality brings about, in both cases, a feeling of fragility or even solitude of the characters. They seem to be waiting something imminent, or a surprise that they will have to face without help. Each figure was cut in such way that they are up against the wall, which thus appears as a barrier and an element of immobilisation.

 

The bikini, a revolutionary piece of clothing that was made a symbol of youth affirmation, facilitates the evocation of a beach atmosphere and of walking on the sand or the water, both natural and predictable in the Portuguese context. With simple lines and easy-to-grasp forms, Pombo represents an ordinary situation in which the dimension of human body is made relative in connection to the scale of the solids they are featured in – mysterious and anonymous, the figures seem to confront the spatial constraint and the symbolic vastness of these minimal sceneries.

 

AG

November 2011