Review
Thomaz Rosa
curated by Cammila Ferreira and Guilherme Teixeira
September 18, 2021 - October 20, 2021
Rio de Janeiro
The exhibition Resenha by Thomaz Rosa features 13 works, curated by Cammila Ferreira and Guilherme Teixeira, and is the artist’s first solo show at the Quadra gallery in Rio de Janeiro.
When we started the Review, we took as our starting point the concept of medley – the title of one of the works on display here – which means the composition of a song from a mishmash of songs and melodies, creating a new song or a set of musical fragments, the pot-pourri, mash-up or sample.
The confluence of references is frequent in Thomaz’s inspirations and creative process, and as we delve into his pictorial research we see that the medley finds meaning precisely in the use of a miscellany of resources, which are repeated, recombined and thus transformed. There are musical scores, clefs, lines, curves, geometric elements, overlays, layers and layers of paint which, when removed, reveal primary colors. Attentive eyes can see that these relationships of probabilities actually give the paintings a characteristic texture, revealing their technical prowess and appreciation of detail.
A review is a meeting between friends, an invitation to play with possibilities of interpretation, create readings and exchange ideas.
“…It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy”
Elvis Costello
Medley 1989
Today I’ve come to talk about the things I’ve kept since São Caetano do Sul
Tijucuçu
founded by Benedictines and the labor of Indians and blacks portrait of Brazil
He was a painter from an early age
believe that the dream is possible
which is the limit
it’s the only truth that keeps the faith
In the Nagô pantheon he is protected
we walk together, side by side
in the crazy life when night turns into day
Send word that here we draw water from stone In this review nobody expects the future to change their lives
the future is a consequence of the present
what’s yours only you can achieve
If they do nothing there, we’ll do everything from here
in São Sebastião
in the same place where the camellias were cultivated
We are like this, capoeiras from the streets
opening the way to the gaze
for art that blends with life.
Cammila Ferreira
*This text was constructed with fragments of songs: MC Marcinho – Garota nota 100; MC Rodson – Papo de Melhoria; Racionais Mc’s – A Vida é Desafio; MV Bill – Junto e Misturado; MC Marks – Deus é por Nós; MC Tikão – Medley do pai; Terceiro Mundo – Cesrv ft Feezus & Febem; Cidinho & Doca – Rap da Felicidade; Gilberto Gil – As Camélias do Quilombo do Leblon; Kiko Dinucci – Padê Onã
And a flash descends as a backrest of density and presence presses on matter, opens the way or snaps, creates space, reveals color and the index oozes all the pigment – here called field and, from the tone that is revealed under the phalanges, the plane wavers. Something points in many directions, the eyes get lost, wander, bounce on the edges of the surface, spiral, breathe in and forget to breathe out, swirl, and finally speak of the place where we point our desire. Today, somewhere in this city, there will be a need for something to be pointed at, touched, pierced by a finger, folded in on itself.
And a flash descends, showing where there is the greatest possibility of color and contact, subject to punctual interactions with matter, adding silence to the noise of gesture and skirting the boundary between form and background. Something points in many directions, fingers bend to emulate a path, knees ache under the weight of time, mouths half-open. Today, somewhere in this city, there will be an inherent desire to make what leaks from the plane to the eye be described, looked at, torn by a finger, folded in on itself.
And a flash comes pouring down our necks, running down our spines, 40 degrees falling from the sky onto our skins, squinting our eyes, enabling the movement of color comparison that the optical game of the slightest difference throws at us. Something points in many directions, and our magnifying glasses are no longer able to hold what emanates from the simple encounter that two frequency spectra postulate by creating a third with their contact. Today, somewhere in this city, there will be reason to believe that the touch of tones that enters our corneas is expanded, closed by a finger, folded in on itself.
And a flash comes down and a particular lexicon is revealed, starting from what touches our ears as a wave and is transformed into an image endowed with sound and meaning at the top of our heads, accompanied – or not – by melody. Something points in many directions, repeats itself in our ears right up to the threshold between sense and noise, travels through the mouths of a thousand of our kind along the shores and sidewalks, spirals, becomes the subject of paintings and falls into our laps at night. Today, somewhere in this city, there will be a need for something to move, for our ears to be sharpened, for our bodies to be the effect and cause of two going back and forth, for something to break under the weight of a phalanx and, folded over us, for the demand for time to be about the need for the pause that light requires when it delivers color to our eyes.
Guilherme Teixeira
