The next part of this work is a performance under the same title, Sketches from the Beach, performed on May 17, 2026, in Cabo Mondego, Portugal. This is where the stones used to create the engravings—the sketches—were collected. It was also here that I spent most of my time observing what was sketched on them. Some of the stones presented are "returned" to the Ocean. I throw the engraved stones back into the Ocean so they can function there, erode, and perhaps one day be found by someone.
Sketches from the Beach is a series of simple engravings made on stones found on the beach. Each object functions as an artifact situated somewhere between a sketch, a relief, and an archaeological find.Numerous human faces, dogs, gestures, fragrant plants, and brief situations remembered during summer observations appear here. Afterimages of everyday scenes observed on the beach are transferred onto material associated with geology.Individual objects function as fragments of a nonexistent archive, perhaps even a fake archaeological collection, drawing on various images from history.These objects also evoke a kind of summer melancholy: the images form frames from a film devoid of linear narrative. Together, they create a dispersed record of glances, momentary fascinations, and ephemeral, irreversible relationships.The engravings are created from brief, often accidental moments of looking: captured gestures, silhouettes, shapes, and faces, recorded almost furtively. I'm interested in the mechanism of selective image memory and the kind of everyday, socially acceptable voyeurism inherent in the beach space.The ocean and waves act here as a neutral, cyclical, and repetitive rhythm. Against this rhythm, individual observations, faces, erections, arousals, running dogs, blooming and fragrant flowers, and situations appear only as momentary traces.
sketchbook 2026, Serra da Boa Viagem, Portugal
sketches from the beach