Hailing from Santos, artist Rafa Silvares (1984) is known for his bold juxtaposition of mundane objects and cultural cut-outs of different origins in paintings and collages. Following his first solo exhibition at Peres Projects in Berlin last October, Silvares returns to the gallery with a new body work. Opening on Fri – Jun 21 is Bloom, an exhibition which showcases a series of canvases defined by a clear, sharp and reduced vocabulary of colour and everyday objects. Assertive compositions of red, green and blue architectures mixed with real-like images of ordinary reflective objects, painted in such a manner they could be photographs, blend with flowers or cloudy shapes of fluids. In his oeuvre, those soft shapes appear as water, air, steam, fire, smell, cream. The tension between the shiny parts and the abstract shapes embodies a tension between physical phenomena and emotional force. These are the parts one can most relate to; one can almost feel, smell and touch the texture of Silvares’ paintings, get close to them in their bubbly, round, full, spherical, sensual waves of sensations.
Or they are the tube-like curtains, vertical gradient waves of soft, velvety fabric. Through such parts, his works gain movement and warmth. There is no one in these scenes, only a hint of a certain presence. Dishwasher, mixer, vase, pipes, silos, conveyor belt – it is obvious, they’re there, and they appear against a flat background as if they were stickers. Or is it just such a huge contrast between fore- and background? What and where are these places? All of those actions happening nowhere. All of those machines present, doing nothing. All of those inoperative tubes and pipes, connecting nothing, going nowhere. Production, going nowhere. Nonstop comical gadgets, going nowhere, doing nothing important at all. A nonsense explosion. The movement though, is it there or just the idea of it? In Silvares’ bold and colourful works, movement is always there, the painted objects are private and public, they represent neither male nor female, they are beyond dichotomy, they are gradient and smooth as well as acute.
Peres Projects
Karl Marx Allee 82 (Friedrichshain)
10243 Berlin
Telephone +49 30 275950770
Mon-Sat 11am-6pm
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
