Galeno: Arte por Engano

In his first solo show in São Paulo, at ART Weekend 2019, in a partnership between Luciana Brito and  Karla Osorio galleries, GALENO presents some experiments from his long research on the relationship between affectivity and geometry in the Brazilian cultural matrix. Altogether, we find works that reach both complexity and familiarity. Metabolizing references of Afro-Brazilian, indigenous and urban culture, the works harmonize traces of different rhythmic systems of geometric formalization in Brazil. Working obsessively since the 1980s, he has developed a sensitive geometry that reflects his own story: a black family in the interior of the country, canoeing great-grandfather, leatherworking grandfather, cabinetmaker father and lacemaker mother. His totemic schemes and vocabulary symbols emerge from repetition and geometry. They become elements that synthesize much of Brazil’s mixed identity, highlighting the dynamics of continuity / persistence and disappearance / erasure.

All this one can notice his two-dimensional paintings, in his object-frames or in his original sculptures. Its organic geometrism is like nature itself: it is never repeated in the same way, but it creates infinite variety that individualizes patterning. Its primary material is oil painting and wood, but it is also nail, rubber, leather, ribbon, wire, lace, spool. He has a sophisticated look using a variety of rudimentary materials, which he alchemically transmutes with his immense creator ability that is not contained in any “ism”. Situated beyond the collective movements, he remains creating his own path, like a warrior which he is, reinventing geometry and amplifying limits of contemporary brazilian art .