With scenic vistas for faces, blossoms for eyes, or nothing however coral above the shoulders, Rafael Silveira’s surreal portraits summon facets of human consciousness that span the spectrum of the great and the bizarre. The Brazilian artist describes his work as “a profound dive into the human thoughts,” merging flowers, landscapes, and uncanny hybrid options into visages that channel humor with a barely sinister undertone.
Silveira’s forthcoming solo exhibition, Agricultura Cósmica at DCG Contemporary, traverses “the fertile terrain of the unconscious,” the gallery says. “With a nod to pop surrealism and the uncanny, his work imagines the thoughts as a backyard the place ideas are seeds and pictures (are) the wildflowers that sprout.”
Silveira works predominantly in oil, utilizing panel or canvas as a floor and infrequently surrounding his works with ornate, hand-carved picket frames. The sculptural particulars of the frames, like an anatomical coronary heart in “Eyeconic Couple” or an all-seeing eye topping “A Crocância do Tempo” — “the crunchiness of time” in Portuguese — learn like talismans.
Lots of Silveira’s compositions start with a conventional head-and-shoulders portrait composition as a place to begin, however as an alternative of pores and skin we see a distant horizon, like in “Magnetic,” or a determine’s head supplanted by a stalk of coral or a column of fireplace. Different items omit the human define altogether in amusing preparations of vivid flowers, which counsel large eyes and addled expressions. Whereas human types shed their emotional autonomy as they converge with their environment, the flora in works like “OMG” and “PLEEESE” are a profusion of awe and want.
Agricultura Cósmica opens in London on June 12 and continues by means of July 10. The present runs concurrently alongside an exhibition titled Plural by embroidery artist Flavia Itiberê. See extra on the artist’s website and Instagram.
