As its annual major art exhibition, "The Little Garden" organized by the Penha Creative Association at the Art Base 1 Gallery installs itself as a visual oasis in one of the most industrial areas of the city. Situated on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors of an old factory building on Av. Almirante Lacerda, between the Red Market and Ponte 16, Art Base 1 is composed of two floors of artists´ studios and one floor of 10,000 square feet of exhibition space. To transform this exhibition space from the huge but enclosed gallery into a "Little garden", has required no less than 200 pieces of artworks shipped from Japan, the result of 20 years of incessant artistic research by the Japanese artist Jun Shirasu.

The exhibition is organized chronologically from the artist's early works (dating back to 1989) to the most recent ones created in Japan and Europe, including marble-etching works, hand-painted ceramic tiles and printmaking art in varied media.

Born in 1965, Shirasu studied at the renowned Slade School of Fine Art in England where he specialized in printmaking arts such as lithography, screen print and woodcraft printing. His recent works include projects of large-scale ceramic murals in different cities such as Lisbon, Tokyo and Macau.

Walking through the series of printed artworks, the audience travels from Shirasu's early experimental lithography pieces made with body movements, into a personal world of organic arrangement. "I started my first study on plants back in 1992 when I was studying in London." Shirasu recalls. "I had to find a subject of study at that time and one day, I was walking through a park and saw that

the trees were really interesting. So that year I only drew trees in all my works." Obsession paired with observation led the artist's focus deeper and deeper into specific aspects of nature. "Hands and arms fascinated me. Or I should say the strokes and the movements. When these parts of the body move and express themselves, it is beyond what is intended." In the Macau exhibition, Shirasu has installed a 12-meter long digital and printmaking artwork that he started working on in 1994. "Language in the dawn" is made of semi-transparent prints on Shoji (traditional Japanese wood frame paper doors) with a digital backing which is programmed to flash lights behind the printed screen. "The digital backing LED lights flash according to the position of a keyboard. Each flash of light corresponds to a letter of the alphabet, and all the letters together compose a poem."

"Read me. Read me. Language in the dawn. Write your name, on the ground. Plants. Water. Shadow. Mirror. Language."

The delicacy of the installation work contrasts humourously with the way the printing screen was made.