LUZ ENCARNADA EM CORPO / CORPO EVANESCIDO EM LUZ - ALBANO AFONSO
Photos: Ding Musa
[automatically translated]
Light embodied in body / Body evanescent in light
The chiaroscuro, which is born in the Renaissance painting of the 15th century, is a strategy for the representation of contours. With her, the objects and figures of the paintings no longer have linear contours, starting to be defined by immersion in light or shadow.
Albano Afonso produces in his works a reflection on the tradition of history of art. His works depart from the genres and themes coming mainly from mind of the history of painting, in which, not coincidentally, the question “light and
shadow” is presented as a central element. They are light and shadow, or the chiaroscuro, which give volume to the still-life paintings, dramatic to history paintings, mystery and melancholy to landscape paintings, power and
strength to portraits and self-portraits. The primary principle of fidelity in capture from the real, little by little, it gave way to strategies of expression; bring to light or letting oneself fade into darkness becomes a conceptual compositional tool in painting.
The idea of binomial presents itself; after all, light and shadow, despite being opposites, walk always linked and inseparable. The existence of one depends on the absence of the other, or of a constant battle of shared existence. Beyond of this physical principle, the idea of opposition and dependence between light and shadow expands as an established metaphor, also by tradition, for several other binomials such as good and evil, enlightened and mysterious, sacred and profane, life and death, among many others.
Albano Afonso's images, installations and objects are radiated by these ideas. The works produced by the artist constantly mention paintings consecrated by the history of art; or, if not mentioned directly, are composed from elements that make clear the reference to them.
His sculptures are still lifes of light. In Still Life, bones, fruits and jars lined with mirrors lose the clear definition that their materials give them to reflect light. They also lose identity, they become only forms soulless. Living matter susceptible to the actions of time is crystallized and now it is evergreen. Enclosed in a glass case, these objects are range of light and sight, but unavailable to touch. They reside there, eternalized, but dead.
In The Wolf and the Birds and in The Bird and the Wolves, the pieces that make up the sculpture are hands in different positions. Cast in bronze, they deny lightnescence of mirrored pieces; are opaque and dense. Bathed in light, they are in space staging the presence of animals. Build the magic of a theater of shadows, where one form is converted into another, and matter becomes deconstructs to reveal a dreamlike scene.
This dreamscape of light — which seems to live between real moments, the universe of dreams and the very historical references of art — is amplified or reduced scale, but it is a constant at work.
An atmosphere constructed by projection and refraction, where crystals replicate or refract light crosses the works, and now crosses the rooms of Casa Bandeirante. In Anatomy of Light #3, tree branches join crystals and mirrored bones.
of the. The forms mix and complement each other, generating other forms. Suspended these pieces move delicately, bouncing the light projected on them. A space in constant movement then emerges, with definitive and provisional forms. The pieces that make up the work remain the same, but their movement creates inconstant lights, which dance through space. Brightness, reflection and refraction become objects of study and subject of works.
Images of lights and sparkles and the luminous palette characteristic of the day and of the night, again binomials, take over the space of Casa Bandeirante. Here, you can partially see the artist in some sculptures. The presence of the artist is
converted into body parts cast in bronze, lifeless, molded from himself. This is the alchemy that Albano operates: light and body are converted into solid and opaque matter, and solid and opaque matter is converted into immateriality and light.
Douglas de Freitas