•one step before happiness - l charcoal on paper | 160x120cm l © k37 studio Berlin 2019

Jorge da Cruz

One Step Before Happiness, 2024

Charcoal on paper
Series of works in various sizes and compositions

Text by Berna Valada

One Step Before Happiness is a series of charcoal drawings by Jorge da Cruz that explores the mountain as both a physical landscape and a subject of cultural and symbolic significance. Through variations in scale, composition, and the treatment of natural forms, the series examines the relationship between human ambition, the experience of landscape, and the changing meanings associated with mountains.

Throughout history, mountains have occupied an important place in religious traditions, mythology, and artistic representation. Their height, isolation, and often inaccessible terrain have contributed to their association with sacred places, spiritual encounters, and the limits of human experience. Mountains have represented both the possibility of reaching beyond the ordinary world and the physical difficulties involved in doing so. They are places of contemplation and revelation, but also of danger, endurance, and confrontation with natural forces.

In One Step Before Happiness, da Cruz returns to these familiar associations while introducing a more uncertain relationship between humanity and the natural world. The mountain is no longer understood exclusively as a place of reverence or spiritual significance. It also becomes an obstacle to overcome, a territory to explore, and a physical challenge through which human ambition and the desire for achievement can be expressed.

The drawings develop this relationship through different approaches to scale and composition. Some present extensive mountainous landscapes, where distant peaks, atmospheric conditions, and open horizons establish a sense of geographical space. Others concentrate on smaller sections of the terrain, bringing the viewer closer to rocky surfaces, fractures, shadows, and variations in texture. These changes in perspective alter the way the mountain is perceived, moving between the monumentality of the landscape and the physical characteristics of the material that forms it.

This movement between distance and proximity is central to the series. Seen from afar, mountains appear as recognisable geographical forms, often associated with permanence and stability. Observed more closely, their surfaces reveal processes of erosion, fragmentation, and transformation. What initially seems monumental becomes a collection of smaller elements, shaped by natural forces and the passage of time.

Da Cruz uses these differences to question the idea of landscape as something fixed or separate from human experience. The mountain can be understood simultaneously as a natural formation, a geographical obstacle, a symbolic reference, and a surface marked by time. Its meaning changes according to the position of the observer and the expectations brought to the image.

The presence of human activity introduces another dimension. Where figures or traces of human intervention appear, they suggest a relationship with the mountain that is not necessarily contemplative. Climbing, crossing, measuring, and occupying mountainous terrain can be understood as expressions of curiosity, necessity, endurance, or the desire for personal achievement. The mountain becomes a destination and a challenge, rather than exclusively a place associated with spiritual experience.

This changing relationship also raises questions about the ways in which natural landscapes are represented and understood. The historical fascination with mountains as remote and powerful environments coexists with their increasing accessibility through exploration, tourism, and human intervention. The distinction between admiring a landscape and attempting to conquer or control it becomes less clear. In the drawings, this tension is present without being developed into a direct statement about human behaviour.

Charcoal plays an essential role in the visual construction of the series. Its range of tonal values allows da Cruz to develop contrasts between dense rock formations, atmospheric distance, and areas of exposed paper. Dark surfaces establish the physical weight of the mountains, while softer greys suggest changes in light, depth, and weather conditions. Through the accumulation and removal of charcoal, forms emerge from the paper, become partially obscured, or dissolve into the surrounding atmosphere.

The material also allows the drawings to move between detailed observation and less defined passages. Certain surfaces appear carefully constructed, while others retain visible traces of the drawing process. This relationship between precision and uncertainty contributes to the impression of landscapes that are constantly changing, despite their apparent solidity.

The series avoids presenting the mountains through dramatic effects or idealised views of nature. Instead, the compositions concentrate on the relationships between form, distance, material, and atmosphere. Their visual intensity develops through contrasts of scale and tone, encouraging attention to details that might otherwise disappear within the larger landscape.

The title, One Step Before Happiness, introduces a further ambiguity. It suggests a moment immediately preceding an anticipated arrival or achievement, but does not establish what that achievement might represent. In the context of the drawings, the expression can be associated with the physical act of climbing, the expectation of reaching a summit, or the pursuit of something that remains just beyond reach.

At the same time, the title leaves open the possibility that the anticipated moment may never arrive, or that reaching a destination does not necessarily bring the satisfaction expected of it. The mountain becomes a setting for this uncertainty, where progress, ambition, and the possibility of failure remain closely connected.

One Step Before Happiness brings together historical associations of the mountain with contemporary questions about our relationship with the natural world. Rather than proposing a nostalgic return to an untouched landscape, the series considers how mountains continue to occupy a space between reverence and human ambition, geographical reality and symbolic interpretation.

Through charcoal drawing, da Cruz examines the mountain as a subject whose apparent permanence contrasts with the physical and cultural changes surrounding it. The works remain attentive to the qualities of the landscape itself, while allowing questions of achievement, vulnerability, and responsibility to emerge from its representation.

The series ultimately concentrates on a moment of expectation: the distance between where we stand and where we imagine we want to arrive. The summit remains visible, but what lies beyond it is uncertain.

BV