Adriano Amaral. TraysForFlotation

Adriano Amaral. TraysForFlotation

An observation of Adriano Amaral’s creations and his work process is equally pleasurable and dense. The artist’s creative environment embodies a universe of references which, in one way or another, seem to always point to things internal and prior to humanity itself, whether in time, in space or simply in the way we appropriate from our experiences and reassign meaning through language.

Interspersing extremely delicate material like meticulously-sewn scraps of silk with aluminum structures that alter the space or even coal sculptures based on articles of clothing, Adriano does not synthesize his questions nor does he limit the observer’s experience to this dichotomy between the delicate and the raw.

The selection of these materials is extremely conscientious and alludes to the idea of our fragility in relation to time, directing us to consider another sort of time, outside of the clock, something situated on a very distant plane, either before our existence or in a time when we’re no longer here; times in which such materials exist independently of human action, taking the metaphor to a palpable, though initially discreet plane.

It’s important to understand that in this quest to portray or symbolize this time separate from us humans, what Adriano proposes is not an attempt to annul us as subjects, or to merely saturate our sensation of fragility in the face of nature, but to somehow try to displace our perception of the spaces in which we are situated, and how we learn from these spaces.

This is evidenced by the way that he also considers his works from the perspective of the physical space in which they are placed, as if someone were trying to ask, Would all this be art if it were somewhere else? or Couldn’t this space which contains these works, also compose something?

In this sense, it recalls Maryanne Amacher’s series Sound for Joined Rooms, in which the artist sought to compose audio installations based on the architecture of the building, seeking a harmony and a resonance ranging from the setting’s acoustics to the materials used in its construction.

Maryanne used the architecture as yet another instrument in her compositions. Adriano does the same thing – the difference being that the process is inverted, his work complements the physical space, displacing its previous meaning, providing new kinds of perception and contact with the environment.

Amaral is an artist of delicacy, especially when working with fabrics that have quasi-geometric representations. The allusion is directed toward something spiritual and fluid, and this process is repeated on different levels and in different forms in his other pieces, as if each interpretation and experience related to his work were accompanied by its own opposition.

Adriano Amaral was born in Ribeirão Preto, in 1982. The artist has been living in Europe over the past few years where he has exhibited his work and participated in the master’s program for sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London. He is currently artist-in-residence at the DeAteliers program in Amsterdam. His recent exhibitions include the solo exhibits Never From Concentrate at Múrias Centeno in Porto (2015) and Soft Matter at Space in Between in London (2014) and the group shows Postcodes: Kind in São Paulo (2014), Open Cube, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, at White Cube in London (2013); and A Sense of Things at the Zabludowicz Collection in London (2014).