António Ole’s work on paper stands out for the richness of its symbolism and materiality. In general, paper – with its apparent fragility – is transfigured into supports that evoke resistance, struggle and the preservation of a memory that seeks not to be erased. In drawings and collages, the artist usees paper as a terrain of traces and fragments, whose intertwined lines seem to go back to the fragmented memory of a history marked by forced displacement, conflicts and social reconstructions. Paper, in this way, becomes not only a support, but also a metaphor for the process of reworking personal and collective histories, which are often fragmented or distorted.

On the other hand, the use of iron in certain works has an even more intense symbolic charge. Iron, a material that refers to strength, reisstance and industrial transformation, is often associated with the context of struggles and construction, but also with suffering and the harshness of living conditions in times of war and oppression. In the context of this Reservoirs of Memory exhibition, iron seems to function as a metaphor for a memory that is « wounded », but also immortalized, through marks and structures that prsetn themselves as testimonies os resistance.

The artist melts and works iron in such a way that it resembles elements of architecture and everyday objects – as if his works were fragments of an industrial or military past, and of a history that is continually reconfigured.