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Azeite de Leos and Otávio Zani at Casa Galeria: two artists, two moments

This week I was able to visit another exhibition, with prior appointment, wearing a mask, all protocols, but with the same good surprise that contemporary art has graced me over the years.

The Casa Galeria Oficina de Arte presents the works of Azeite de Leos and Otávio Zani, curated by Carmen S. G. Aranha and Loly Demercian. The exhibition can be visited virtually, an experience that I strongly recommend by visiting the website at the end of the article. I inform you that all images published here are my own.

One question I always ask when I look at an artist’s collection of works is to ask what point in his or her trajectory I am witnessing at that moment.

I have been accompanying the production of Azeite de Leos for some years and in this exhibition it is impressive to see the maturity of his work. Starting from painting and drawing, over the years, a process was operated where layers of walls, fragments of areas are reassembled, receive interventions with painting and / or writing, creating a strong and emotional pictorial narrative.

It is a meticulous work, a collection made constantly of elements found by the artist in his walks, or that are in his surroundings and are at the same time preserved and re-signified in a singular poetics. Because the images are abstract, but because of the texture and the reference of the fragment of built walls, they touch us in the sensitive of an affective archeology that we all have, a place that shelters, welcomes and protects us.

In this sense, we can see the maturity of the artist, who created a coherent body of work and moves freely through it, without what we see having an experimental character, but which speaks to us of the poetics that inspire and move it.

As a power of this action, a whole view of the external space, of this urban and fragmented daily life, of this tension between construction and destruction, gains a vital resonance in the exhibition. We are in the gallery, in the exhibition room, but the works put us in this field of the affective shelter and chaos of a world that has flirted dangerously with dystopia.

Otávio Zani, on the other hand, invites us to walk a path that starts from engraving, but walks through interventions with painting and collage. The expressive character and the use of intense colors and tones are a counterpoint to the delicate work process, which involves more than one technique with a result of unique beauty.

Here, the vigor of the production is manifested in the works together, in an image that can be a starting point, but after receiving interventions it becomes individual. There is a challenge that the artist manages to overcome when presenting a larger number of works, which could sound like an exercise or perhaps present a certain imbalance, which does not happen.

On the contrary, the set of images presented transmits the energy and the pulse of its moment of creation. An artist who found his way and now begins to walk it with serenity.

The curatorship performed was impeccable and sought to bring out the best of each artist in this exhibition, which is why we reinforced the invitation to visit, with the option of doing so in virtual mode.

It is worth pointing out how contemporary production in visual arts increasingly appropriates techniques as axes through which new and thought-provoking results move and build.

In this delicate moment that we are going through, we must respect and take all necessary care, but also share and value all initiatives that seek to disseminate art and culture.

Soon we will all meet and hug. And so that we can be with our hearts full and our minds healthy, art yesterday, today and forever.

Information:

https://www.lolydemercian.com.br/