Fernando Vieira creates digital art that feels remarkably like physical objects, often blending abstract geometric shapes with the rough textures of textile surfaces. In his work Percussionist, I am struck by how the vertical composition of green, brown, and blue polygons sits against a surface that looks exactly like a piece of heavy canvas. These overlapping triangles and rectangles create a sense of depth through their arrangement, even though the individual blocks of colour remain flat and unshaded. It is an interesting way to use digital tools to mimic the weight and feel of a handmade wall hanging or a woven tapestry.
Percussionist
This focus on texture continues in Sails And The Moon, where the artist uses a palette of orange and brown to build a more atmospheric scene. A large, light-coloured crescent shape sits on the left side of the frame, providing a focal point against a dense background of red and orange triangles. These shapes vary in their transparency and shade, giving the impression of light passing through different layers of fabric or paper. While the work is abstract, the way the rectangles and triangles stack together suggests a complex, layered construction that goes beyond simple digital illustration.
Sails And The Moon
In other pieces like Sunday At The Fair, Vieira moves away from the canvas look to experiment with interlocking flat shapes that cover the entire surface. This image features a busy arrangement of yellow, red, black, and blue shapes with a mix of straight and curved edges that seem to jostle for space. It feels more like a digital collage than a painting, yet it retains that same interest in how different forms can fit together to create a unified whole. The use of tan and grey helps to ground the brighter primary colours, making the entire composition feel balanced despite the complexity of the overlapping lines.
Sunday At The Fair
Penstock offers a slightly different approach by using a cooler palette of teal, pink, and grey across a series of interlocking geometric forms. A vertical column of stacked shapes on the right side of the image connects to a horizontal pink band, which eventually meets a curved grey base on the left. These flat shapes are precisely arranged to create a structural feeling, almost like a diagram of a machine or a building. By stripping away the heavy textures found in his other works, Vieira allows the clean lines and the relationship between the teal and cream colours to take centre stage in Penstock.
