Some works do not ask to be understood immediately. They ask to be felt first.
With Beyond the Abstract II, Lisbon-based artist Joana Vasques (@its.joanavasques) continues her exploration of emotional landscapes, the ones that exist beneath the surface of everyday life, where feeling, memory, questioning and transformation quietly meet.
Through colour, texture, symbolism and the human figure, the exhibition invites the viewer into a space that feels both intimate and open. Each work begins from something personal, but does not remain closed within the artist’s own experience. Instead, Joana leaves enough space for others to enter, recognise, project and find their own story within the image.
Painting is a way of returning to presence, for Joana. A way of slowing down. A way of allowing the canvas to reveal what the mind may not yet be ready to name. In that sense, her work carries a soft but powerful emotional charge: it is less about explanation and more about release. This is where Beyond the Abstract II becomes a kind of inner alchemy. The works move through different states of being: feeling, questioning, release, reconnection.
Joana Vasques describes herself as a soul alchemist artist, blending creativity, mindfulness and expression to inspire self-discovery. Her practice is shaped not only by her background in Visual Arts and Decorative Arts and Heritage, but also by her interest in wellbeing and inner exploration. Reiki, energy work, women’s circles, tarot, oracle cards and art psychotherapy have gradually become part of the way she understands creativity as a tool for processing, expressing and connecting.
That sensitivity is visible in the exhibition. The paintings do not try to dominate the room. They create an atmosphere. They ask for attention in a quieter way. The abstract forms, layered textures and symbolic details suggest emotional movement rather than fixed meaning.
Almost a year after her first exhibition in Lisbon, Beyond the Abstract, this second chapter feels like a deepening. If the first body of work opened a door into healing, empowerment and emotional exploration, Beyond the Abstract II continues that conversation with a more grounded sense of trust. There is a feeling of return to the body, to the self, to the canvas, to the act of allowing something to emerge without forcing it into words.
Presented in Ericeira, the exhibition also finds an interesting rhythm with its surroundings. There is something about the coastal energy of the place, the movement, the openness, the sense of pause that connects naturally with the emotional flow of Joana’s work. The paintings seem to hold that same invitation: to breathe, observe and soften.
At its core, Beyond the Abstract II is an exhibition about what exists beyond the visible. It asks us to look past the surface and pay attention to what is happening underneath. Joana does not offer fixed answers. Instead, she creates a visual space where each viewer can meet the work from their own inner landscape.
On view at Break Point Ericeira until 28 October 2026, Beyond the Abstract II is an intimate and emotionally resonant exhibition, one that reminds us that art can be a place to process, release and reconnect with ourselves.
