Evocação 8 2007

Editor: Evocação 8, created in 2007 by Julio Resende. The medium appears to be acrylic paint. Curator: A vibrant chaos, isn't it? The impasto texture practically leaps from the canvas. The palette, while bold, almost teeters on the edge of clashing. Editor: The materiality certainly draws you in. Look at the visible layering of the acrylic paint, it’s a testament to the physical act of creation. One senses the artist's hand, almost a dance, across the canvas. This isn’t just about seeing; it’s about feeling the process. Curator: Agreed, and those obscured figures demand a response. Is it fauvism revisited, perhaps filtered through an expressionist lens? The brushstrokes certainly convey an emotional intensity. Note the angularity of the shapes, fighting the potential for harmony, leading to pictorial tensions which the artist uses as formal scaffolding. Editor: Given its title, "Evocação", or Evocation, perhaps we’re meant to consider the social environment shaping memory, tradition, the experiences informing those abstracted forms and the colors. Look at what seems to be red dirt mixed into the paint layers. This isn't disembodied, but produced. Curator: That reading is, admittedly, intriguing. Still, one cannot ignore the formal dynamism. Consider how the planes intersect, the use of complementary colors to create, perhaps, tension. There’s a structural integrity despite the apparent spontaneity of the paint application. Note the limited colour range and the composition to a pyramidal schema to build its thematic unity. Editor: Perhaps the lack of high finish also is important. The roughness of the acrylic combined with the texture brings an important authenticity, and in that way gives the work a life and vitality which the image alone lacks. Curator: So you are proposing this adds a degree of material veracity? Very compelling indeed. Editor: I wonder how the meaning may change as this object continues to age and decay. A thought for another day maybe! Curator: It does seem the layers of observation available in Evocação 8 keep unspooling; it remains a rather seductive, powerful image.