"Epithelium" Exhibition by Peter de Brito

A Portico Gallery presents Peter de Brito's first solo exhibition in the space, curated by Claudinei Roberto da Silva. Sample "EpitheliumThis exhibition inaugurates the gallery's annual programming calendar and continues the artist's research into racist mechanisms that operate in multiple ways in society, as well as the memories of the scars that make up this social body.

With a background in biology, physical education, and visual arts, Peter de Brito builds a practice guided by technical experimentation and reflection on the body, while also embracing irony, resulting in works of poetic and political intensity. "My engagement with socio-political causes began to appear in my artistic work naturally, as a result of an immersion process in the theme of the body," says the artist.

Peter is the creator of the performance “The Black Presence,” created in 2014 in partnership with Moisés Patrício. The action promoted the occupation of galleries and cultural institutions by Afro-Brazilian people during exhibition openings. The artist's trajectory reflects this scenario; despite starting his artistic career more than 20 years ago, he only became represented by a gallery last year, when he joined Pórtico.

These questions arise in the series "Eugenia," in which the artist uses decolorization as a formal procedure. Peter manipulates bleach on black cotton fabrics to reveal the image, in a process he defines as a "constructive depainting." Carefully applying different concentrations of bleach, with brushes or by pouring the liquid onto the fabric, Peter has rigorous control over the material's action time, where forms are configured in various shades of ochre and sepia to compose the skin tone of the characters, as he keeps the chlorine active or stops its action with water baths.

Between self-portraits and family records, Peter discusses eugenic ideology and its legacy in contemporary times, manifested in police violence and underrepresentation in leadership positions. In Brazil, Black people accounted for 86% of those killed by police intervention in nine states in 2024, according to the report "Target Skin: Chronicles of Pain and Struggle," by the Security Observatories.

The artist cites the work "The Redemption of Ham" (1895), by the Spaniard Modesto Brocos (1852-1936), always used as a visual translation of the whitening thesis in Brazil, which, years after the abolition of slavery, proposed ways to control miscegenation and the progressive whitening of the black population, in line with the eugenic discourses that marked the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

Epithelium or epithelial tissue

The body tissue that covers internal and external surfaces, such as the skin, functioning as a protective layer for the organism, is appropriately titled in the exhibition. For curator Claudinei Roberto da Silva, the social dermis, corrupted and wounded by centuries of colonial order, nevertheless has the capacity to heal itself.

“It is common for the surface of scarred skin to acquire a different hue from the original, becoming darker or lighter, depending on the nature of the wound and the consequent tissue regeneration process. Individuals, depending on their disposition and class condition, resort to cosmetic or surgical artifices to mitigate and even eliminate these marks; but the frayed social fabric cannot be artificially mended,” he concludes.

Among the photographs, the triptych “Mimesis” (2005) shows hands being washed with soap until they become discolored. The work marks the beginning of Peter's investigation into discoloration techniques on supports ranging from posters/reproductions of works of art to cotton denim. The latter serves as the basis for his current research, which consists of large and small-scale paintings.

In “À flor da pele” (2023), Peter articulates references from two central areas of his trajectory — biology and visual arts. The installation presents a vase with an arrangement of white flowers immersed in black dye, which gradually stains the petals — a visual metaphor about processes of cultural appropriation and exploitation of the labor of the black population.

Revisiting the extermination policies associated with eugenic ideology, the work "While Your Wolf Isn't Coming" (2024) reconstructs a Ku Klux Klan hood, embroidered with eyelashes reminiscent of the character Emília. The work thus engages in dialogue with the figure of Monteiro Lobato, a writer who was a member of the Eugenic Society of São Paulo, founded in 1918.

"I believe that these works will add to the many others that give rise to criticism and reflection on the subject," adds de Brito.

Service
Exhibition Epithelium
From February 28th to April 11th
Tuesday to Friday, from 10 am to 19 pm, and Saturdays, from 10 am to 17 pm.