Bringing the flowers to you

João Motta Guedes’s artistic practice is rooted in poetry as a force to question, dream, and shape the way to follow. His work engages in philosophical and political dialogues investigating how emotions such as freedom, vulnerability, love, and violence manifest as symptoms of the human condition. The presented sculpture exists in the paradox of weight and lightness. Its title evokes the gesture of carrying flowers for someone, yet the work mirrors the emotional baggage a person carries within them. The contrast between the lightness of the flowers and the weight of the backpack speaks to the tension between love and burden and the way we live. Motta Guedes was shortlisted for The Millenium BCP Foundation’s Young Art Award in 2023. He recently exhibited in Vulnerable Objectivities in a Garden of Delights and Horrors, The Loft, Servais Family Collection, Brussels, (2025); No feeling is final, Galeria da Boavista, Lisbon, (2024); How to live?, Galeria NAVE, Lisbon (2023), and You came to start the revolution, Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon, (2023).