Galeria Nuno Centeno shows Matheus Marques Abu (b. 1997, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), for the first time in Portugal. Matheus, a self-taught artist, began painting during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. On a trip to Salvador, Brazil, he came across the adinkra symbolism introduced to Brazil by enslaved black people during colonial times.
These signs of resistance were ingenious means of communication between subjugated people and were mostly carved into gates and windows by enslaved blacksmiths. Ancestral Waters is Matheus’ continuing endeavor to expand the transmission of the cultural impacts of colonial history on the African diaspora in Brazil. This process seeks to deconstruct the Eurocentric view of history, so present worldwide, by giving visibility to what has been forcibly suppressed.
Matheus Marques Abu has already taken part in several artist residencies and exhibitions at an international level, including the Karla Osorio Gallery (Brasilia, 2021 – with a solo exhibition); in Milan, with the solo exhibition Profecia (2022); at A. I. R. Krems (Austria, 2023); at One Gee Fog (Geneva, Switzerland, 2023). He has participated in several Brazilian art fairs, such as ArPa, ARTSAMPA, SPArte and ARTRio.
Internationally, he has taken part in the ARTGENOVA, Italy; Abu Dhabi Art, UAE and SPARK, Austria art fairs. His work is included in the following collections: Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR and Museu Nacional de Belas Artes  – MNBA, both in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Text by Ekua Yanka

Águas Ancestrais: Saudades da Mãe (terra) by Brazilian artist Matheus Marques Abu is his first solo exhibition in Portugal. Matheus Marques Abu (born in 1997) is part of  a new generation of Afro-Brazilian painters from Rio de Janeiro who are taking Europe by storm. Matheus Marques Abu is represented by Galeria Karla Osorio in Brasilia, which presented his work in several art fairs in Brazil and Abroad, such as SPARK Wien, ARCO Lisbon and 1-54 London in the summer and autumn of 2024. Besides he had artistic residencies in countries such as Austria, Italy and Switzerland. At the moment his works are part of several institutional shows in Brazil.
Águas Ancestrais: Saudades da Mãe (terra) occupies The Cave Project Space at Galeria Nuno Centeno in Porto. The exhibition opens with two windows onto the ocean,  a large-scale diptych first seen at the 1-54 fair in London, before inviting the visitor to enter deeper waters.
Matheus Marques Abu, known for his ephemeral paintings of black boys and herons suspended over deep blue waters, has created a new work to suit the gallery space. As the viewer descends into the cave, they encounter four smaller windows. These contemplations of water as a timeless connection to the past, present and future are recurring themes in the artist’s work. Coming from a deep connection with spirituality and Candomblé, he paints the waters he feels inside. His research into knowledge systems and ancestral traditions implies  a longing for a connection with the mother (earth) felt by many Afro-Brazilians. The abstract glimpses of the artist’s dreamlike world are the intermediate spaces that come before his characteristic bodies in flight.
The canvases bear scars. The openings are a rupture,  a violence inflicted on the waters, on a people. The ancestral waters are intimately connected to the trauma of separation and the loss of the transatlantic slave trade. The journey into the deep blue of the ocean is at the sametime a journey into mourning.
His solo exhibition in Porto, the port city of the former Portuguese empire, is symbolic. It is a gesture of reconciliation with the past and the possibility of creating a joint and prosperous future between Brazil, Portugal and the artist’s motherlands.