Galeria Karla Osorio presents

EXPEDITIONS

Solo show Bruno Duque

Curated by Wilson de Avellar

Opening, saturday, july 27, 2019

5-9pm, Brasília

Pavillion I, galleries 1, 2 and 3

             The Galeria Karla Osorio presents the solo show of the artist Bruno Duque. The exhibition is curated by Wilson de Avellar, includes 22 works – 18 oil paintings on canvas and 4 oil pastel drawings. Some works created since 2017, when the artist, after completing his master’s degree at UnB, returns to his hometown. He reveals a challenging and provocative production result of independent researches, but which are complementary and approach, in their dialogue, a very broad spectrum of the history of painting. It presents the genres landscape, portrait and still life, in addition to the use of religious symbols of african origin. Bruno Duque’s paintings in “Expeditions” relates to the most traditional representations forms, taking them forward in a direction that becomes visible.

The show presents three series – Matas, Alter and Ebó – which have in common the photographic reference and which relate more by contrast than by contiguity. “Alter’s” animals are isolated from “Matas” landscapes and both remain free of humans. In “Ebó” it is not the culture and the symbolism that are exalted, but the very life evoked by the orixás. They are movement, acting forces. The elements used in rituals are fluid like liquids and fumes. “Expeditions” is an exhibition on life, not unlike that of biologists who travel to distant places to study living beings with their drawings, but here the artist’s experiences are in another level, it approach senses and  exchange of places.

About the exhibition

In “Expeditions” he uses painting to describe in detail what in 2017, was unknown to him and now still remains unapprehensible.

The series “Matas” is composed of six landscapes without any vestige of human interference and not even traces of animals and insects. They are horizontal format screens, of dimensions between 30×40 cm up to 206×309 cm in which the vanishing point disappears and the view is obstructed by the vegetation itself, which contests for places in the light. They are dead and living plants that overlap, peel, dry, grow, lose limbs and coexist. In an analogous way, the painting presents sketches, elaborations and details, that are painted imitating the development of the plants that the artist accompanies in the garden that maintains in the studio. The paintings of “Matas” by Bruno Duque are pleasurable, but represent forms of life that have another time, another form of organization and that is a placed somewhere which we cannot place ourselves, which we perceive with superficiality.

The series “Alter” presents animals juxtaposed vertically, such as totems, which, however, do not unify. The word “alter” in portuguese reminds of the word “high” (alto) and comes from Latin, where it means another. The “other,” referred here, is not a human being, but a different living being. These are their main characteristics which place them so close and so apart: “to be alive” and “to be diverse.” Different from our relationship with plants, it is easier for us to place ourselves in the place of animals. This is the otherness that the artist explores in seeking to nullify at most the symbolic associations between the chosen beings. The artist seeks to treat each animal in a totally independent way, developing different techniques and strategies to reproduce it, achieving a sense of unity in each of them, unlike what happens with the forests. The nine screens of the series are vertical in dimensions varying from 50x40cm to 215x120cm.

“Ebó” gathers paintings of umbanda (afro-brazilian religion) offerings. The three paintings of this series are placed on the ground, creating a longitudinal plane which reproduces the “terreiro” ground itself (Umbanda churches) where the photos have been taken in rituals photographed by the artist with due authorization of place owner. This series creates distortions in the objects in a way that they rise subtly from the ground. These paintings have a privileged point of view when it coincides with the point where the offering was photographed. Reproduced in the real format of the objects, “Ebós” series show all the care and affection with which the offerings are prepared, with ornaments, lights and elaborate arrangements – which close to the “drawn points” and with the symbology of the Orixá to whom it is dedicated -, form multicolored and beautiful compositions. In addition to the three paintings, four drawings of details of offerings appropriated from internet images are presented. They are drawings of oil pastel and  dendê palm oil, which dyed the paper with its peculiar color.

About the artist Bruno Duque

Bruno Duque holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Guignard School in Belo Horizonte (2005) and a Master’s degree in Art and Technology from UnB (2017). He participated in art shows throughout the country and abroad, such as the Anapolino Salon, the April Salon, the Jataí Salon, the Biennial of Small Format, in Moita, Portugal, among others. He often works with photography and painting, media that blend seamlessly into his research and practice. The work “identity”, 2012, is an example of this production, in which the artist paints a self-portrait of 80×60 cm and prints as a 3×4 photograph to later get it inserted by the responsible body in his identity card. The “Diametral” project, which he created in 2014, exemplifies the diversity of the artist’s production. It is a work of art-communication, in which he is the proposer of a meeting between people from diametrically opposite countries. The meeting, which takes place in audiovisual format, during the simultaneous twilight in both countries, has already occurred in 2014 between Brazil and Japan and in 2017 between Paraguay and Taiwan. Broadly, Bruno Duque works with immaterial images and their materialization.

Gallery Karla Osorio

Created in 2014, the Karla Osorio gallery acts for the insertion of contemporary artists in the market and in the institutional scene. It favors the most innovative production in art and it stimulates the rescue of artists of previous generations identified with its program. It promotes temporary solo and group shows. It represents brazilian and foreign artists. It participates regularly in international art fairs, being the only gallery in Brasilia in some of the best fairs in the world (USA, Europa, South America, Asia and Brazil). It supports innovative research and projects, promotes a program of courses, lectures, partnerships with other spaces and institutions. It develops projects with visiting curators and offers artistic residency with studio, in a privileged space. It also operates in the secondary market. In addition to its headquarters in Brasília in SCS, it has exhibit space in Lago Sul and an office in São Paulo.

Service

Solo show
EXPEDITIONS
Bruno Duque
Opening: saturday, July 27, 5-9 p.m.

Pavillion I, galleries 1, 2 and 3

Visit until September 7, 2019.
Monday, 9-18h30 | Saturday 10-14h, under apppointment

 

Gallery Karla Osorio
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