– Nuno Melo Sousa

This text is a part of a series of reflections by Nuno Melo Sousa on his drawing practices. Click here for the series introduction.

As we travel, sitting, walking, flying, and running, we can look at the world.
As we sit, eating, we can look at a small cahier also sitting, next to the plate. A pen smoothly slides towards it, pointing out what to do next. Here and there, it falls back to squares and circles and rectangles, and lines. As a convulsion, figures start to appear. They look and are familiar as each new page brings a relative. They are cousins, aunts, fathers and sons of imagined compositions. Some might become real. Others, fight against gravity and keep their pace only between the cadence of the flipping pages. All of these hold a common ground: they have just enough to pull an idea out of them. In their own ambiguity, they can be straightforward. And, depending on the ‘when’, they may say different things.
Most are black ink momentum, drawn while being an exam vigilante, attending a football match, a soundcheck before a show or at a bus stop waiting for the caravan to take off.
Because ideas cross minds like contrails.
They do share turbulence and need: to describe, prescribe, relate, to quickly freeze: a given sight or vision. As a recap of a premonitory flash.
They bring an ‘I think I saw you the other day’ feeling.
Through the window.
On-site.
On the street.
On a book.
On a picture, while trippin around a social networking slide show.
I saw you. I’ve met you. I draw you. You relate. Thank you. Nice to meet you (again and again and again).
We’ve become friends over the passing years. We use to hang out pretty often. You’re near my torso, on the side pocket of most jackets. You’re red, black or pink—depends on which store you’re brought from. You don’t hold any lines or you hold a thousand squared grids to be fulfilled.
Tickling and tickling.
You kill those seconds to go. You release, as an x-ray, anxiety, and pressure.