In Edgard de Souza’s embroidery, we can observe the artist’s body at work, moving in a simultaneous movement of implosion and explosion, dissolution and evasion. The only figuration among the embroideries are cloud figures, in a comment on the search for images in gestural abstraction, which is similar to the game of looking for images in clouds.

The surge of life drive embedded in everyday objects is a constant in Edgard de Souza’s oeuvre and becomes evident in the series of sculpted wooden spoons the artist presents in the exhibition. These apparently trivial objects, now endowed with impulses and desires, were meticulously sculpted from rare wood logs of mahogany and jacaranda from Bahia. In Colher lambe colher / Spoon licks spoon the wood comes to life through human features, and as a couple, the two spoons serve each other voluptuously. In Colher de pau – cara de pau (pinoquio) / Wooden Spoon – stick face (pinocchio) the utensil becomes as malicious as the character of Carlo Collodi – the lying spoon has its nose stretched out. Colher de pau – cara de pau / Wooden spoon – stick face is cheeky and sticks its tongue to the observer.

Torneira [Faucet] (2018) is a mundane object that surges with life. This piece is from a series of faucets of outsized proportions that de Souza has been working on since the 1990s. From the mouth of the gold-plated bronze faucet flows a large drop resembling human secretion.

Edgard takes his “imprecise” scribbles – as seen in his recent solo show – and inverts them into a combined construction using cotton thread on linen surfaces. In the current show, the “action drawing” is taken in a different way by creating friction between the spontaneous and the planned construction. The embroideries can be as erratic as scribbles – or punctual – as if they formed infections on the fabric. In both cases, they have in common the evidencing of the volume constructed from accumulation of material forming protuberances and thus breaking the bidimensional.

The surge of life drive embedded in everyday objects is a constant in Edgard de Souza’s oeuvre and becomes evident in the series of spoons the artist have been developing. The objects were meticulously sculpted from wood logs and, here, they were cast in silver. In Colher lambe colher the silver comes to life with human features and, in a pair, seem to serve each other voluptuously. The size and material of the pieces bring the objects closer to those of daily use and has the potential to envelop the viewer – who could lead them to the mouth – in their malice.

In Edgard de Souza’s embroidery, we can observe the artist’s body at work, moving in a simultaneous movement of implosion and explosion, dissolution and evasion. The only figuration among the embroideries are cloud figures, in a comment on the search for images in gestural abstraction, which is similar to the game of looking for images in clouds.

“If to photograph is to take possession of the thing in itself, to appropriate me of photographs is to double take possession of the thing, that is: of the thing itself, and of the copy of the thing. It should be considered as a ‘double claiming’. The whirlwind – a phenomenon that appears and disappear in seconds and, obviously, difficult to photograph – has a great symbolic load in the hinterland of Minas Gerais (a large inland state in southeastern Brazil): it is perceived as a kind of materialization of the demon. Starting from this allegorical principle, photographing a whirlpool is like shooting the devil itself and it is up to us, creators and spectators, to be part of this pact. In 2008 I wanted to know the region of the hinterland of Minas Gerais that inspired my illustrious compatriot João Guimarães Rosa and to photograph whirlwind over there. The trip did not take place; so I embarked on a great research, among photographers – friends, strangers, noted – looking for those who would have accomplished the feat and who could share with me and the world, not only the documentation of the natural and ephemeral phenomenon, but the sensation of photographing it. How? Through their own account of that moment, so magical that it might even approach the very magic of ‘Grande Sertão Veredas’ [‘The Devil to Pay in the Backlands’, a 1956 novel by Guimarães Rosa]. The testimony of the other is an activating agent: to share stories is to bring the photographer closer to literature. The wilderness of the novel turned into the romance in the wilderness. What is closer to the devil than the delirium of fever or passion? During the search for images, I heard more stories about past and lost whirlwinds than stories about photographed whirlwinds. Even though nothing substantial has changed in the landscape, there is a presence there, fleeting, like a sudden warmth, a perfume or chords of a song. Even if an image does not remain as a testimony, through the recounting, through the narrative, remains the reminiscence, the hurt, the scar. What remains of a fever, except the remembrance that it has come and gone?”
Rosângela Rennó, 2008

The book depicts an action where two woodworkers transform two single beds into a double bed.

On a desk, a pile of books that addresses political and economic ideologies, reacts to the approaching observer.The books revolve around the same axis, preventing the reading of their content.

Chaia proposes a screen-printed red rubber object that takes the shape – and size – of a human gut divided into scales like a ruler.

In NightDay, Cinthia Marcelle proposes a time count from the selection of materials: fabric, paint, timber batten and shoelace. The piece consists of 12 modules with 6 layers of industrially patterned fabric with 60 black stripes on white background. The black stripes are covered gradually by white paint. The same linear measure of covered stripes is transferred to black shoelace which covers segments of battens that accumulate piece by piece over each module. The movement of Marcelle’s clock reflects the time of labor used in the manual realization of each piece in subtraction and addition operations.

Cadu’s “Clotho” (2015) was developed during an artist’s residence in Nowy Sacz, Poland, in 2015.
In the action, two pieces of crochet in the shape of giant cylinders with the equal height of each of the performers, is interconnected by several meters of red thread and positioned on opposite sides of the action space. The thread that connects one structure to the other is in constant motion as, in order to construct one piece, it’s necessary to gradually undo the opposite piece. That is, for the maintenance of cycles, each performer needs to subtract part of the twin structure of the other, and at the same time give up part of theirs in a cyclical process of usurpation and supply. According to Cadu, “Clotho, one of the three Moiras, manipulator of the Wheel of Fortune and holder of the fate of mortals and gods, baptized the work.”

Cadu’s “Clotho” (2015) was developed during an artist’s residence in Nowy Sacz, Poland, in 2015.
In the action, two pieces of crochet in the shape of giant cylinders with the equal height of each of the performers, is interconnected by several meters of red thread and positioned on opposite sides of the action space. The thread that connects one structure to the other is in constant motion as, in order to construct one piece, it’s necessary to gradually undo the opposite piece. That is, for the maintenance of cycles, each performer needs to subtract part of the twin structure of the other, and at the same time give up part of theirs in a cyclical process of usurpation and supply. According to Cadu, “Clotho, one of the three Moiras, manipulator of the Wheel of Fortune and holder of the fate of mortals and gods, baptized the work.”

Cadu’s “Clotho” (2015) was developed during an artist’s residence in Nowy Sacz, Poland, in 2015.
In the action, two pieces of crochet in the shape of giant cylinders with the equal height of each of the performers, is interconnected by several meters of red thread and positioned on opposite sides of the action space. The thread that connects one structure to the other is in constant motion as, in order to construct one piece, it’s necessary to gradually undo the opposite piece. That is, for the maintenance of cycles, each performer needs to subtract part of the twin structure of the other, and at the same time give up part of theirs in a cyclical process of usurpation and supply. According to Cadu, “Clotho, one of the three Moiras, manipulator of the Wheel of Fortune and holder of the fate of mortals and gods, baptized the work.”

Cadu’s “Clotho” (2015) was developed during an artist’s residence in Nowy Sacz, Poland, in 2015.
In the action, two pieces of crochet in the shape of giant cylinders with the equal height of each of the performers, is interconnected by several meters of red thread and positioned on opposite sides of the action space. The thread that connects one structure to the other is in constant motion as, in order to construct one piece, it’s necessary to gradually undo the opposite piece. That is, for the maintenance of cycles, each performer needs to subtract part of the twin structure of the other, and at the same time give up part of theirs in a cyclical process of usurpation and supply. According to Cadu, “Clotho, one of the three Moiras, manipulator of the Wheel of Fortune and holder of the fate of mortals and gods, baptized the work.”

Cadu’s “Clotho” (2015) was developed during an artist’s residence in Nowy Sacz, Poland, in 2015.
In the action, two pieces of crochet in the shape of giant cylinders with the equal height of each of the performers, is interconnected by several meters of red thread and positioned on opposite sides of the action space. The thread that connects one structure to the other is in constant motion as, in order to construct one piece, it’s necessary to gradually undo the opposite piece. That is, for the maintenance of cycles, each performer needs to subtract part of the twin structure of the other, and at the same time give up part of theirs in a cyclical process of usurpation and supply. According to Cadu, “Clotho, one of the three Moiras, manipulator of the Wheel of Fortune and holder of the fate of mortals and gods, baptized the work.”

“[…] André Komatsu makes his personal interpretation of urban signaling devices by producing something between sign and billboard, two metal plates that together form an X, empty by the words RIGHT and LEFT. The shuffling of two directions, at once spatial and political, signals the confusion of Brazilian political life. […]”
Excerpt from Experimentando espaços 2, by Agnaldo Farias

“[…] André Komatsu makes his personal interpretation of urban signaling devices by producing something between sign and billboard, two metal plates that together form an X, empty by the words RIGHT and LEFT. The shuffling of two directions, at once spatial and political, signals the confusion of Brazilian political life. […]”
Excerpt from Experimentando espaços 2, by Agnaldo Farias

“[…] André Komatsu makes his personal interpretation of urban signaling devices by producing something between sign and billboard, two metal plates that together form an X, empty by the words RIGHT and LEFT. The shuffling of two directions, at once spatial and political, signals the confusion of Brazilian political life. […]”
Excerpt from Experimentando espaços 2, by Agnaldo Farias