Cruz’s book, Stretching can be easy, provides a road map to understanding the depth and development of his psychoanalytical works. Self-published as a print-on-demand edition in 2018, the 268-page monograph candidly documents his studio life and early paintings and sculptures, together with his artist’s residency in China and breakout solo shows in Lisbon. Compiled from his own photographs, the publication exposes his do-it-yourself process for making playful sculptures with paper, tape and plaster, while offering insight into his gradual shift from painting figurative subjects to more abstract, yet symbolic, canvases.

His idiosyncratic way of working was first displayed in the 2018 one-person exhibition, Long Story Short, at Balcony Contemporary Art Gallery, where he presented large-scale paintings of layered abstractions alongside figurative depictions of a household iron and a machine gun. The wall-works were juxtaposed with handmade sculptures depicting legs growing out of a rock and a giant electrical cord and plug, together with assemblages that cleverly combined smaller paintings with ladders, boots and suitcases over a cardboard-and-tape- collaged floor. Toying with the spectator’s eye and mind, the lively show created a heady narrative from things that were both theoretical and referential.

His 2019 solo show with Balcony Gallery, The White Goodbye: what goes in through  the eyes and comes out through the hands was an offsite project in decorative  rooms that were lit with only natural light. Offering dozens of surreal white  sculptures made from hand-shaped Styrofoam that was coarsely covered with  plaster, the haunting exhibition commemorated the death of his beloved  grandfather—with the creation of the monumental sculptures and their display in  a graveyard- or garden-like setting becoming a cathartic way for the artist to deal  with his grief. 

Two curated solo shows at celebrated art centers in 2021 brought an even greater  level of in-vention to—and a much broader recognition for—the artist’s distinctive  works. Armored Room, curated by Marta Mestre at the José de Guimarães  International Center for the Arts, constructed a dreamlike dimension permeated  with personal references joined by inspirations from the center’s eclectic  collection. Papier-mâché, plaster and wood sculptures were influenced by the  collection’s African sculptures and black-and-white paintings on canvas, bordered  with colored fabric, recreated illustrations from Scottish writer JM Barrie’s story of  Peter Pan, a fictional boy who refused to grow up. With figurative pieces cast from  his family member’s body parts and such curious sculptures as a slithering blue snake and a monkey climbing a ladder displayed above a canary-yellow floor, the  dramatic objects and theatrical installation created a spiritually charged scenario. 

The second exhibition, Biting Dust, was curated by Leonor Nazaré at the Calouste  Gulbenkian Museum. Presenting ten narrative paintings and twenty archetypal  sculptures (most of them bronzes) especially created for the show, the metaphoric  works were presented in two distinct spaces connected by a dark passageway. The  paintings depicted a man falling on stage, a road-way leading to an unknown  destination and a snake-covered brick wall, which doubled as a half-open doorway  to the room with the sculptural pieces. Standouts among the sculptures were a  plaster figure of an old man sitting on a bench as a large plaster swan flies off with  a real robe in its clutches and a cardboard-constructed crown, cast in bronze,  resting on a plinth that’s labeled with the artist’s name and date of birth, 1995.  Reflecting on life, death, loss and decline, the poetic artworks became allegorical  actors in a self-referential play. 

That brings us to INSONE (INSOMNIAC), the most dynamic and psychologically  revealing installation of paintings and sculptures the innovative artist has created.  Exploring his mental and physical state, the twenty-one abstract paintings and  singular figurative sculpture create a constellation of artworks conceptually  connected to the body of the artist. Cruz has labeled the group of paintings Cérebro,  which mean brain in Portuguese, and he refers to the sculpture as Orfão, or Orphan  in English. The paintings are internal landscapes—they reflect the inner thoughts  and corporal feelings of the artist, released onto the canvases. The sculpture  represents the body of the artist (the person who made the paintings) and the  paintings embody the brain activity taking place in this seemingly dead or  dreaming figure. 

Whereas his earlier figurative paintings had been influenced by Paula Rego,  Francis Bacon and Leon Kossoff, his recent abstract canvases convey more of a  kinship with Sigmar Polke, Albert Oehlen and Laura Owens. The paintings weren’t  made one by one, several were painted simultaneously—layer-by-layer, moving  from one to the next. They are cousins, siblings—interchangeable parts of the  constellation. The process of creating them was additive, never subtractive; if a  change needed to be made, more paint was added. They were painted  improvisationally, like jazz, like bebop, where an action with the paint or brush  was quickly met by a reaction with another type of a mark, often made with  another tool or technique, color or structure. The artist had to give up control, let  the hands speak. He had to get into a zone—do first, think later. 

The painting Broken Constellation (Cérebro) shows Cruz’s experimentation in the most minimal means. A series of black lines was added to the canvas to signify a broken network, a breakdown in the system. Next, the dotted ground pattern was formed by applying paint to bubble wrap and then pressing it onto the canvas. Lastly the shadows were created to lend an illusionistic dimension to the image, making it seem more real, and gray areas added to make that reality less clear.