All the amazing pastel canvases by Luís Athouguia are open windows to emotions. These windows give us a glimpse of lives that have been guillotined but are nonetheless gifted with immeasurable powers of locomotion. They are essential windows which by leaving behind the more practical aspects of everyday life open up to fast flowing seas of thought. The never ending nature of such windows gives rise to moveable mountains of dreams. We should not be afraid to say that Athouguia’s substantial pastel lights up our night and brings us the purity of primitive times when we were able to reach out and touch the stars.
To be precise, nobody today in Portugal paints like this. Luís Athouguia is unique and beyond classification (his work is neither surrealistic nor is it bereft of surrealism in the statement it makes)! All this voluptuousness of which dreams are made is what brings out his strength. And also all that is balanced and harmonious in his work. Now that Mário Botas, Cesariny, Álvaro Lapa have departed, we can still count on Luís Athouguia to guide us to the land where rabbits wear timepieces on their wrists and girls have more than two breasts upon their chests.
(translated by Ana Rosa Ascenso)