In Portuguese artist Fernando Gaspar’s work, the written word is often the starting point. That is where it begins. They are then essentially developed from exploring the stroke, the drawing - more than the color. His quest for the essential is an insistent, physical movement. In his large-scale canvases, he paints over charcoal, a secondary matter, layer by layer, overlapping, sometimes opaque, and sometimes transparent. The endless quest for the minimal - and for all - is an impulse, a line. His enigmatic work drifts and returns - it does not repeat or mince. Gaspar’s works are not always objects of easy empathy; nor should they be. They are never smooth planes, nor dermal exercises. Often there is thickness that the paint and stroke silence. He writes about them, to better construct, understand and open them.