The art exhibition that we is being planned to celebrate the birth celebrations of St. Francis Xavier in Borim onn 7th April 2025 , is trying to set free boundless energy held in the interstitial (space ‘ in-between’) that is created by the relation of Goycho Saib and Goans of all walks of life. It is an attempt to weave together the dynamic and lived relations of Goycho Saib and the people of Goa. This is why it moves into post-representative mode of painting animated by the dynamism of the depth of the relations attempting to frame the similitude of what exists between Goycho Saib and Goans.
This attempts to paint the deep and personal bonding between St. Francis and Goans grown and nurtured over the centuries is not a rupture of already existing painting art around the great Saint. It certainly stives to bring to light a new dimension to it through the creative acumen of the artists from Goa. This is why the art practices that the theme of exhibition embraces are not representative but expressive.
Expression does not occur in the vacuum. The expressive art that we are trying to produce attempts to capture the relations of Goans with Goycho Saib and hence to me it come close to resemblance. Resemblance is slightly anti-Platonic as it is not concerned with the exact copying of a pre-existing art but opens its self to creative dexterity of the artist to give life to the relation that they experience in the matrix of life lived in Goa.
This means the painting practices that are to capture the theme are to produce paintings that are poetic and as such are expected to produce new trajectories of thought and meaning . This is the reason these paintings might appear untimely for some and thus appear to be disruptive and even interrogative of the status quo that one brings to bear on the dynamism of one’s life. Such felt disruption might arise from the demand for the painting to become representations. Hence, we as Goans have the challenge to open our hearts and minds to an art form that is resemblance and not simply a copy.
This move is important in an era where we can mechanically reproduce copies of the same . in this scenario the original is lost in its copies. The depth perspective can only be produced through non-representational paradigm whether of art or epistemology. Our exhibition is based into a paradigm that embraces art as resemblance and not as art as representation. It is a post-representation art form but does have its moorings in renaissance art.
The theme of the exhibition produces divergence as the artist creatively converge on its inspiration. Each artists will creatively and imaginatively portray the brilliance of the relation of Goans and Goycho Saib triggering different aesthetic orders in their audiences everything effected through the singularity of their art work. While the ocular tastes of some of the audiences might still want artists to produce painting of Goycho Saib in their familiar taste, the overwhelming response that we seem to have received till now for the event seem to indicate that our people are open to the creative portrayal of the dynamic depth of the relations of Goans and Goycho Saib.
Indeed, our exhibition can become a site of truth-telling / parrhesia about the relation of Goans and Goycho Saib. As we are not simply limiting our art works to representative practices, we remain open to the fact that this new art works may produce affect and transformations in their audiences. Thus, indeed the paintings will have parrhesiatic elements and may produce parrhesiatic effects in the audiences.
The art that we are trying to produce through the paintings that will be displayed in the art exhibition is trying to become a parrhesiatic art. It will certainly produce transformation in the imaginations of the beholder. The paintings will have the capacity to unearth plenitude of spiritual forces that will enable the audiences to appreciate the depth of the truth of the relations of Goycho Saib and the people of Goa.
While the paintings articulate the truth of the relations of Goykar and Goycho Saib , the art exhibition will set in a process of transformation that will touch the hearts and minds of its beholders. In fact the art exhibition will unleash two modes of veridiction. One is that which is spoken or articulated creatively and diversely by the artists and the other one that is understood and received by the beholders of the art. Art is dialogical as well as synodal. It leads to a mutual discovery of the truth.
We hope that the art exhibition truly becomes an alethurgy or truth regime that proclaims loudly and boldly the truth about the deep and intimate relation of Goans and Goycho Saib, St. Francis Xavier. We also hope that it becomes a catalyst that will bring Goans of all faiths together and open space for further creative expressions that will enrich all Goans and build peace, unity and harmony in Goa.
