In his first solo exhibition at Galeria Leme, Felipe Rezende presents his latest production, composed of oil painting on truck tarpaulin and drawings with japanese ink and graphite on paper, all of them never before seen pieces. Curated by Tiago Sant'Ana, O último buritizeiro [The last buritizeiro] remains on display between February 2 to March 10, 2023.
In his set of works, Rezende mixes observations of his daily life with elements from pop culture, such as characters from animes and comics, in a way to contribute with a visual narrative. In the pieces presented in the show, the artist amplifies his subjects of interest and starts to incorporate debates around environmental issues and the migratory flow to São Paulo.
In the work that gives the exhibition its title, the artist depicts Dona Ozelina in the center of the composition and a buriti behind her. Around this figure one can notice a...harvester, a bucket and a bowl full of the fruit of the plant, demonstrating two distinctive ways of harvesting and planting and an agricultural plane spewing out agrotoxins. On the top left side of the composition a Koffing - poisonous character from the anime Pokémon - wears a cowboy hat.
Ozelina lives in the Cacimbinha quilombo, on the West of Bahia. The region exists behind an intense conflict between two antagonistic projects, on one side the peasants, geraizeiros and traditional communities, who live from the abundant hydra resources, from the cultivation of buriti and the knowledge of the biodiversity of Cerrado and on the other side the agribusiness, which currently occupies 150 thousand hectares, planting soy, corn and cotton, according to the Comissão de Direitos Humanos e Minorias da Câmara dos Deputados [Commission on Human Rights and Minorities of the Chamber of Deputies] report.
"Felipe developed a manner of creating from what he observes and establishes relationship with in his daily life, but he doesn't stop at this point, because he mixes elements from this tangible reality with other figures, that most of the time comes from the universe of dream, from comics and pop culture. He uses these elements to make a kind of collage, that overlaps different elements in this atmosphere, that he creates in favor of the constitution of a narrative", comments the curator Tiago Sant'Ana.
The choice of using truck tarpaulin as a support for his paintings goes beyond an exclusive material issue, it contributes as a metaphor for the transit of people, elements and images from one place to another.
"These tarpaulins travel, slide on the roads and carry with themselves a sort of wear and tear of time, marks that are inscribed in its fibers. They are a strategy that Felipe uses to deal with these flows of migration, of finitude, of the passage of time", adds Sant'Ana.
Entrada actualizada el el 03 mar de 2023
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