Rodrigo Andrade "Two Caverns"

About

One of the most significant painters of the 80s generation, Rodrigo Andrade will display his most recent works at Galeria Millan and Millan Annex, from June 1 to July 1 of 2017.  Duas Cavernas (Two Caverns) covers the main tendencies the artist has concentrated on intensively in recent months. Known for his ability to radically change the course of his work, in the quest for new lines of research, Andrade is experiencing a moment of greater synthesis, in which the various paths of his 33-year career appear to converge more profound interaction. With this exhibition, he creates an interesting interface of dialog with the major retrospective exhibition of his work at the end of the year at Estação Pinacoteca Museum.

In all, the exhibit will include 25 to 30 canvases, organized around three main axes: the landscapes, largely inspired by the classical works of masters such as Ruysdael, Uccello and Bellini (occupying the main gallery); the abstract paintings, the Bilaterals, consisting of two large chromatic fields, in equilibrium (shown in the annex); and, as the balancing factor, since they introduce questions common to the two previous groups – a series of recent works, the “binary figures".

These figures move between the figurative and the abstract and invariably consider the idea of the pair, of the reflection, an aspect frequently seen in all the artist's work. Some of these binary bring aspects that hark back to the universe of cartoons or to references of art history (as in the case of Fera e Princesa (Beast and Princess), in a clear dialog with Uccello's St. George and the Dragon, and Bicho e Pedra, depois de Neves Torres (Creature and Stone, after Neves Torres), based on a work by the author named in the title). Others are more indecipherable, like the gigantic 6 x 11 meter mural that Andrade will paint on one of the Annex walls.

The grottoes, catacombs and rocky outcrops, picturesque themes of the 19th century, have long captivated the artist and he has been collecting images of this type since 2010 and reworking the theme pictorially, until reaching the current stage. The caverns and his other works are dimensional bodies that project themselves beyond the plane, conquering space. In dealing with the masses of paint – in work that harks back to the geometrical forms of his paintings of the 2000s, which became a kind of artistic signature – Andrade uses masks and carefully designed templates in the cutting out process.

Since the early years, when his work and that of other colleagues – meeting at the Casa 7 (Number 7) atelier – came to the public's notice with their participation in the 18th São Paulo Biennial, there have been a number of radical changes in his output. The most recent of these was in 2010, when Andrade – who had been producing markedly abstract work – surprised the circuit with the black, immaterial landscapes, based on photographic records, displayed at the 29th Biennial (2010). Now, in addition to boundless vitality and a turning back in search of a greater incidence of color and form, the artist seems more inclined to tread parallel paths, discovering in each of them aspects to feed his research.