Offcite Blog | Design. Houston. Architecure.

Master of Visual Poetics: Henrique Oliveira’s “Tapumes” at Rice Gallery

• Art & Culture, Reviews

Five days before the opening of “Tapumes,” stacks of thin wood lay parallel across the Rice Gallery floor, arranged in varying widths of similar colors. Ladders and lifts outnumbered the installers. Behind the screened entry, shapes jump and dive into view giving passers-by a notion of what is to come, the first solo exhibition in the United States from Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira, now open at the Rice Gallery until May 9, 2009.

At the age of 34, Henrique Oliveira earned his Masters of Visual Poetics from the University of São Paulo. Slightly tense, with skinny dark jeans and curly hair, his mannerisms bring to mind a young Bob Dylan. Oliveira began his artistic explorations as a painter and expands a vocabulary suited to brush and canvas, transposing terms such as “gestural abstraction, movement, and blending” into the context of sculpture, or more specifically “Tridimensional.” The latest of his “Tridimensionals” is called “tapumes,” a Portuguese word that references temporary construction fencing made from cheap Brazilian wood and discarded at the end of a job. Oliveira’s piece is a jolting repurposing of these weathered castoffs.

Doors open to the Rice Gallery and a diverse group of students, collectors and artists mill in and out of both the gallery and sculpture. “Tapumes” invites hands to hover a few inches from the surface, following the folds and curves of the wood. In the crowd you can observe people gesturing with cupped hands or tracing fingers in explication of the fantastic landscape they have found. Pliant and supple, Oliveira’s construction appears so flexible that it gives the impression that pushing on one bubble would create two more. A girl slips between the installation and a solitary shape that seems to have dripped from above. This is a sculpture that begs to be occupied. In fact the entire piece gives the impression that the artist is engaged in a schizophrenic nesting, inviting you to join. Leaning to examine the textures, depth of color, tunnels, and voids formed by the thin wood it appears at times violent and at other moments serene. Caves and tunnels are formed so abruptly that they betray the slenderness of the surface; one can’t help but wonder if there is more beneath.

Colors seem pulled directly from weathered beach houses, yet occasionally are so vibrant they could only be South American. Oliveira uses scraps shipped from Brazil but also collected in Houston, mixing languages, blending the materials. The composite of so many pieces of wood, layered and overlapping, gives the sculpture a unity that surpasses the individual beauty of the elements and shapes. The piece recalls Oliveira’s origins as a painter in that it is built up in layers, over time.

With his hands crossed nervously in front of each other at his belt, Henrique Oliveira describes his background, his inspiration for the Tridimensionals, and his process of assemblage. The installation of Tapumes took two weeks to construct, beginning with an underlying framework of flexible plywood. These pieces are bent and curved to form the bones of the sculpture. Suggested by the contours of the piece “underneath is an entire installation” of criss-crossing ribs and cavities. Small sketches are used to explore possible individual shapes by Oliveira but he does not begin with a completed vision of what the work will be. Once the framework is in place, he begins by wetting the stained strips of salvaged wood then applying them in layers affixed with staples. A time-lapse film just outside the gallery shows his process.

Visible by their tiny glint, Oliveira makes no attempt to disguise the staples holding his piece together. These reflections are the only perceptible suggestion of structure. Where figures peel from a wall or ceiling, the increased frequency of staples indicates the acrobatics required to achieve the desired form. Some curves are negotiated between strips without any staples, some require many.

One of the mysteries of a piece such as “Tapumes” is how the artist decides when it is complete. Certainly the structure is hidden; a primary wall or object is covered. When do the layers of wood stop unfolding along the walls, stop spilling from the ceiling, stop wrapping and bending? A young child at the opening suggested, “he must’ve run out of staples.”

Images from the gallery:

Email This Entry