Rafael Carneiro: Literatura

Luciana Brito Galeria is pleased to present Literatura [Literature], a solo show by Rafael Carneiro (São Paulo, 1985). Opening on Saturday, September 23, this event features the artist’s most recent production, celebrating his second show at the gallery with artworks being shown now for the first time.

Exploring different media, Rafael Carneiro is presenting, in addition to five new canvases, a set of sculptures and a series of drawings, the oldest dating from 2003.

Rafael Carneiro’s canvases, featured at the show with exclusivity, display a high degree of technical rigor and resort to painting as both a means and an end for the representation. To make the five artworks, Rafael Carneiro mixed images from his personal collection with some of his own drawings, constructing original compositions transposed onto large canvases. The final result is a set of artworks with vibrant colors and nonlinear imagetic constructions, which beckon the viewer’s gaze to move throughout the entire canvas which, despite being constructed from parts, is greater than the sum of the images that compose it.

Also being shown here for the first time is a group of four sculptures produced by Rafael Carneiro in partnership with artist Chico Togni. Consisting of a giant cake, a hyperrealistic anthill, a ball of modeling clay and some gelatin, the set bears relation to Rafael Carneiro’s visual poetics, while through its diversity of materials it explores the dimension of sculpture as an artistic language.

The show also features a series of eight drawings by Rafael Carneiro made in mixed-media on paper and which condense more than one decade of the artist’s production. The show will furthermore include the release of an artist’s book with the same title as the exhibition. Consisting of the reproduction of 20 drawings by the artist, the book has the interesting format of a drawing sketchbook. Sharing a construction similar to that of writing, Rafael Carneiro’s works can be considered enigmas to be deciphered, in an original way, in their interaction with the public.

About Rafael Carneiro

Born in São Paulo in 1985, Rafael Carneiro received his degree in visual arts from the Universidade de São Paulo in 2006, showing the final project for that course at the exhibition In Vitro, at Centro Cultural São Paulo, that same year. In 2007, he participated in the 62nd Salão Paranaense and won the acquisition prize of the Salão de Arte de Ribeirão Preto. The following year, he received his first Projéteis prize, from Funarte, and held his first solo show. In 2009, he participated in Rumos Itaú Cultural and held solo shows at Centro Cultural São Paulo and Centro Cultural Maria Antônia, both in São Paulo. In 2016 the artist participated in the exhibition Os Muitos e o Um: Arte Contemporânea Brasileira, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake. This year, his work was featured in the exhibition A luz que vela o corpo é a mesma que revela a tela at Caixa Cultural Rio de Janeiro and in the exhibition Metrópole: experiência paulistana, at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo.