Numerous dichotomies—natural/artificial, abstract/figurative, material/immaterial, ecology/technology—were at play in Adriano Amaral’s exhibition of recent works, “Lagoa de dentro” (Inner Pond). Employing forms of the four basic elements—air, earth, fire, and water—in tandem with synthetic or industrial materials such as silicone, acrylic, and aluminum, he also combines manual and technological processes to create his works. The resulting paintings and sculptures presented here prompted the viewer to contemplate more binaries: life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness, and the transitions between them. On the gallery’s flaking walls hung a selection of the small- and medium-format, stretched silicone membranes that comprise his “Pinturas protéticas” (Prosthetic Paintings) series (all works 2022). The details beneath and on the surfaces of these untitled mixed-media paintings—which are composed of pigment, graphite, powdered iron, and China ink and contain tints of pink, yellow, green, and blue—demand close observation. Some of the works (all individually untitled) in this series have frames shaped like radial portals, talismans, or even geometrically rippling ponds, which guided attention toward tensioned prosthetic silicone surfaces at their center and revealed what was imprinted on them: fragile, elusive, and predominantly monochromatic images in relief, derived from photos the artist took in the rural surroundings of his home in São Paulo. One such pink-toned picture portrayed a person sitting on a bridge amid lush vegetation, looking down at their reflection in water.
Amaral employs the same silicone utilized in the outer layer of human prosthetics. This impression of a synthetic skin was furthered by the way in which the artist sutures the edges of some of his taut membranes to the frames with nylon thread. In other “Prosthetic Paintings,” opalescent smudges appeared trapped within the cloudy silicone, producing a sensation of containment. It was as if the elements imprisoned inside the material were in the process of forming an image, like a dream or a memory about to take shape in the mind’s eye.
The show also included a few sculptures, a couple of which had an off-white, silvery sheen. An untitled group of hanging, dried, thorny plant stems, coated in prosthetic silicone and powdered aluminum, were lined up like a barrier. A car hood more than six feet wide and bristling with bird heads was similarly enveloped and hung like a shield on the wall (Untitled, from the series “Penitents”). Finally, three rectangles of compacted dirt were installed at opposite sides of the space. With jagged edges similar to those of the acrylic frames set onto aluminum plates on the floor, they recalled coffins or mattresses in their human scale. One contained a humidifier that emitted vapor and was surrounded by lit candles; the other two supported a mirrorlike, though not reflective, rectangular plate holding oil and aluminum dust. Invisible biochemical processes enacted by the combination of materials in these sculptures generated sulphuric odors that wafted through the room. All three were surrounded by glass microspheres on the floor that made scraping noises as one walked on them. Like the other works in the show, these invited us to contemplate our changing physical and mental relationship to nature, technology, and transcendence.
— Camila Belchior