The Space Between the Notes, the Circulation of Bits

They orbit through the starry night in clusters that either draw near or drift apart; they, the night birds, soar over that almost regular navy-blue surface, serving as a trace for the deadly trajectories of their brief lives. “Night bird falls night upon us, and now only remains of love the guaicuri sky.” On the verge between suspension and falling, the flight pattern of birds and the cosmic pattern of stars connect in a dynamic interplay between pattern and randomness, between fabric and arbitrariness, between the expansion of wallpaper and the precise placement of reddish stickers…
They come from the pictorial surfaces of other paintings, some closer and some farther away, all enveloped in that reverberating atmosphere. Pneu queimado. Carburador furado. O semblante fechado. Coração dilacerado. Três dedo de vidro baixo. [Burnt tire. Punctured carburetor. Closed expression. Torn heart. Three fingers of low glass]. These are some of the syncopated samples by Bruno Alves in his paint- ings, speaking to us with a highly attentive and qualified poetics. A work that is both process and the result of that process, producing paintings that carry the lingering similar to the intentional repetition we experience when listening to our favorite musical albums. Seeking highs and counterpoints.

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They flow in different directions, creating a transmission system between one can- vas and another. On the surface of “O espaço entre as notas” for example, water is guided by six parallel blue strokes, standing out from the lighter blue background; their verticality interacts with other components of the canvas, enhancing the dynamism in hands, stairs, and faces present there. In “Nas águas sagradas da pia” water takes the form of a bluish jet cohabiting between two white areas, one cut in a rounded shape and the other more pointed, with its transparency highlighting the young man holding the watering can in the background. The sense of the canvas suggests the downward movement of that liquid mass, contrasting with the upward reading of the musical passage “nothing like one,” between musical notes...

... But another depth speaks as well from the very surface of the newsprint fragment.

Fragments of sheet music glued and drawn in various paintings by Lucas Almeida open pathways through the waters. They express that the space between the notes is guided by grooves and bits, weeping and purification. The choice, the dream, the survival of Racionais, jazz, and other compositions that the visitor is invited to see, listen to, and remix with their own references. The artist’s sampling act highlights an exercise based on the diversification of used quotations and the deepening of the pictorial experience, the con- struction of the painting, developed both in the studio practice and in its refined listening.

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At first, they cycle through the system of the collage, each fragment in constant semantic play. Collage, the sample, is the intelligence that unifies the canvases “Diretoria lá da leste” and “Meu nome na sua boca silêncio nas boca do céu,” two paintings that feed off each other from the curved constructive element of their arches. Above them, the colors and motifs of Genaro de Carvalho’s tapestry; below them, the reference to Juraci Dórea’s giant letters, updating the messages present in the verses and rhymes of Tasha and Tra- cie, Eva band, and Marabu. Image and sound, different archives of representations of the world. It’s no coincidence that the principle of sampling as the most basic level of cultur- al motivation harks back to the sampling of the world done by photographic images and the phonograph’s sound recording...

... But then the voices begin. And they sing, each in its own way, the following verses: “Quem me protege não dorme”, “O luar representa ouvindo Cassiano”, “No piscar de olhos malandro demais vira bicho” e “nove noites ou deus pivete” [“Who protects me doesn’t sleep,” “The moon represents listening to Cassiano,” “In the blink of an eye, the hustler turns into a beast,” and “nine nights or God, kid.”] The voices depicted in painting by Bruno Alves appear in the medium size of vinyl records. They have centered faces and appear enveloped in blue halos or framed in decorative weaves in shades of green, yellow, and red. The reverse – the verso – of some of these record-canvas are structured with a patterned fabric, adding to the painting an object-like aspect and restoring the tactile handling of record covers.

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The abstract surface acts as a trigger for meditations, creating a reflective flow of painting, line, and form, whose passages do not project transparent planes, but surfaces full of mass, mask, and coating.

The abstraction of semicircular parallel strokes, in shades of orange, brown, gray, and a large purple area; these dashes guide our gaze through the different material supports that structure the collage-painting, a stamp-like form. A stamp as a sample, highlighting a mark repeated by the artist in multiple variations...
Voices of love, voices of compassion, voices of joy, voices of repercussion, voices of serenity. Lucas Almeida makes these bits circu- late through curves and counter-strokes, not forgetting the trapezoids and triangles that also rebound and transform the surfaces of several of his works. From the repetition of strokes, some drawings stand out: a cast of hands, heads, and bodies emerge, desiring to share their actions and expressions with us as we listen to their voices. Among these voices, “the unknown genius of the extreme south of São Paulo,” red, blue, brown, black, brown, red.

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The space between the notes is the precise and continuous moment when bits and samples are activated, in counterpoints, much like many of the partnerships we create in
our journeys. In this sense, this exhibition is more than a welcome opportunity to hear the arts of Bruno Alves and Lucas Almeida, their bits and samples, their paintings and collages, their journeys and partnerships. Pay attention to the complementary contrasts between their poetics, activate the reference each brings to our own repertoire, and, with that, take advantage of the best sound we could desire from this battle. The works of Almeida and Alves offer us the circularity of visual, sonorous, graphic, conceptual, and decorative signs in looping, remixing the crystalline clear atmosphere of painting and fac- ing the opaque surface of the world. Let’s stay tuned for the next samples.