"Come Inside" Exhibition

Prominent artist in the contemporary art scene in Rio de Janeiro, Miguel Afa presents his first solo show at Gentle Carioca, bringing together a set of 10 new paintings, as well as a site-specific installation that will occupy the area of ​​the gallery known as the pool. The text introducing the exhibition is written by rapper and composer Emicida.

The result of the artist’s recent production, the exhibition brings together reflections on territory and memory. Born in Complexo do Alemão, Afa transposes his view of the transformations of this place and the bodies that inhabit it into his paintings. The figurative images, plucked from memory through childhood memories, are integrated into the various layers of meaning arranged in the pictorial field of the works. Memories such as “the earth leaving the backyard to make way for concrete, the fruit trees being cut down, the racialized bodies being read as marginalized,” as the artist says, are also connected to experiences of fraternal coexistence. The title of the exhibition is a reference to the feeling of “care and affective order” arising from this place of memory, which the artist imbued himself with to produce the works in the exhibition.

A very present element in the artist's research into territory, the kite appears in many of his works, acting as a guiding thread in this new exhibition. The representation of this childhood object of desire is sometimes as a geometric element, sometimes as a playful resource, or simply as a toy in his compositions. One of the main paintings in the exhibition, inspired by A Portrait of the Artist by British artist David Hockney, shows a pool of kites with the Serra da Misericórdia from the early 20th century as the backdrop – a group of green mountains surrounding the Penha Church, where the Complexo do Alemão was later established. As an expanded field of this painting, a site-specific installation will group hundreds of kites in the gallery's pool space, expanding the artist's dreamlike imagery beyond the painting.

The meticulous study of color and the choice of a palette that is not very saturated bring significance and meaning to the poetic, visual and thematic repertoire of Miguel Afa’s work. These characteristics are reminiscent of other references in the history of art, such as some works by the Italian Giorgio Morandi and the French Edouard Villard, considered by Afa to be those that managed to show the interior through the nuance of color, which reached the “color of the inside of the house”. In the work of the artist from Rio de Janeiro, in addition to being a tool for investigating painting, color proposes a deep racial reflection through the approach to the work. “When seen from afar, the color, almost metaphysical, does not communicate what my painting is conveying, which is configured as an analogy to the racialized body”, explains Afa. “The first look at this body involves the preconceived idea that leads the thought to a marginal place, full of racial and social issues. Only when you get closer to the painting do you realize the complexity of the existence of this body. When I think about the color of my painting, I think of a body proposing a color and inviting the viewer to take one or two steps forward, in order to really understand what they are seeing”, concludes the artist.

Service
Exhibition | Come Inside
From September 21st to January 25th
Tuesday to Friday, from 12pm to 18pm, Saturday, from 12pm to 16pm (with prior appointment, except on opening days)