- Lily (sich kussendes paar),
a small dimension sculpture that inhabits, suspended, the exhibition space, is manually built in iron which is then painted black, like most sculptures by Rui Chafes. In terms of image, the entire sculpting work of this artist is the expression of a thought that wants to overcome the limits of materiality, aiming at the reencounter with a lost spirituality. From the various influences his works receives, also present in this work, the spiritual legacy of the German late gothic stands out, as well as the German romanticism and the formal inheritance of post-minimalism. The projects he builds are only possible as the translation of an idea, since, for the sculptor, “matter is dirty and wrong”, denying, in this way, its materiality, valuing only the symbolic medium of something that can be found before and after its own objectivity.

In its appearance, this sculpture, seems to paradoxically evoke the candour of a flower in its opening movement, while its shapes bring to mind sharp claws. However, the composition of the elements which are not totally mimetic but where a certain organic quality stands out, lets the spectator see in the object what it most identifies and relates with.

Taking shapes as referents of other potential recognizable shapes, this idea of flower leads inevitably to the mysterious blue flower in the poetic work of Novalis, important to the theoretical thought of the sculptor and which has been present in his work throughout the years. Equally important in this work is the word, which in the form of the title, is directly influenced by poetry, and has therefore a special and profound symbolic character. By evoking a memory and echoing a meaning that lies beyond description, - Sich Kussendes paar
, leads us to the idea of a couple and the amorous exchange of a kiss.



CQ