QUINQUE COLUMNAE

Mário Lopes brings ideas to life in three dimensions, transforming personal experiences into tangible forms, using stone, wood, and cork while honouring their natural qualities and symbolism. His rural upbringing shaped a deep sensitivity to nature’s growth and transformation, which continues to inform his practice. QUINQUE COLUMNAE is a symbolic construction—a space shaped by memory and time. Lopes blends natural materials with enduring human structures like dolmens, and cathedrals that reflect purpose and spirituality. The manipulation of stone and wood reflects permanence and vitality, embodying the duality of human experience: grounded in the earth, yet reaching toward something greater. The work celebrates the balance between nature and culture, and the materials that carry humans across generations. Mário Lopes has exhibited in Intemporalidade da Matéria, Museu Int. de Escultura Contemporânea (MIEC), Santo Tirso, (2024); The Te Kupenga Int. Sculpture Symposium, New Plymouth, (2023); The Int. Sculpture Symposium Forma Viva, Portorož, (2021); The Jeddah Int. Sculpture Symposium, Saudi Arabia, (2019). In 2023, he completed the NU’VEM Artist Residency in the Azores.