No Barriers
During the two years that Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira pursued his master’s degree at University of São Paulo, the scenic view from his studio window was of a plywood fence surrounding a construction site across the street. Over time, Oliveira watched the once-brand-new sheets deteriorate and peel apart to reveal layers of color in a process that reminded Oliveira of the act of painting. A week before his final student exhibition, the construction project was completed, and the dilapidated fence was torn down. Inspired, Oliveira rushed out, gathered the scraps and used them to create his work for the show. It was the painter’s first installation.
Oliveira collects the fencing scraps for his work from the streets of São Paolo.
For “Tapumes,” Oliveira’s installation at Rice Gallery, the artist again created something amazing from this most unpromising of materials. The word tapumes can translate from Portuguese as “fencing,” “boarding” or “enclosure,” and in Oliveira’s hands, delaminated and decrepit construction fencing is transformed into a sculptural tour de force.
Oliveira collects the fencing scraps for his work from the streets of São Paolo. He works with the pre-existing paint on the plywood surfaces or sometimes tints the irregular strips of raw veneer with sheer washes of earthy colors that allow the tone and texture of the wood to show through. To create “Tapumes,” Oliveira and the installation team constructed an elaborate armature across the back wall of Rice Gallery, in part relying on high-tech, flexible plywood to form the substructure for the patchwork of veneer fragments. Oliveira then used variously hued wood swatches like strokes of paint, layering them together over the armature and painstakingly stapling each piece in place.
Where most people saw old, peeling plywood, Henrique Oliveira saw a new medium.
The multicolored surface of “Tapumes” seemed to roil and undulate across the back wall of Rice Gallery. It bulged out and then curved onto itself, creating tunnels. Stalactites dangled from the ceiling; bulbous forms sprouted from the ground. Those seemingly unpromising scraps of plywood read like individual brush strokes and created a dynamic visual swirl of the sort you might see in the background of a Van Gogh. In fact there is something slightly ominous about the work. Stare at it a while, and it’s as if the famed Dutch painter’s choppy, frenetic brush strokes have escaped from one of the late artist’s canvases and gone viral, infecting and consuming the gallery wall.In the art world, it’s often said that everything has been done before, and that’s probably true, in some form or fashion. And it’s also probably true that a great idea can turn into a gimmick in the hands of some artists. But Oliveira’s work seems surprising, fresh and highly original as he keeps pushing the boundaries and exploring the possibilities of tapumes that are no longer barriers.