Hailing from Santos, artist Rafa Silvares (1984) is renowned for his striking juxtaposition of mundane objects and cultural cut-outs from diverse origins in his paintings and collages. Following his debut solo exhibition at Peres Projects in Berlin last October, Silvares returns to the gallery with a fresh body of work. Opening on Friday, June 21st, “Bloom” is an exhibition that presents a series of canvases characterized by a clear, sharp, and reduced vocabulary of color and everyday objects.
Silvares’ new pieces are defined by assertive compositions of red, green, and blue architectures intermingled with hyper-realistic images of ordinary reflective objects. These objects are painted so meticulously that they could be mistaken for photographs. These realistic depictions blend seamlessly with flowers or fluid, cloudy shapes, evoking elements such as water, air, steam, fire, scent, and cream. This interplay creates a tension between the shiny, tangible parts and the abstract forms, embodying a balance between physical phenomena and emotional force. Viewers can almost feel, smell, and touch the textures of Silvares’ paintings, immersing themselves in the bubbly, round, full, spherical, and sensual waves of sensation.
Silvares’ works also feature tube-like curtains and vertical gradient waves of soft, velvety fabric, adding movement and warmth to his scenes. Despite the absence of human figures, there’s a hint of presence suggested by the objects within the compositions. Items such as dishwashers, mixers, vases, pipes, silos, and conveyor belts appear against flat backgrounds like stickers, creating a striking contrast between foreground and background. These scenes evoke a sense of ambiguity and surrealism: where and what are these places? The machines are present but inactive, with tubes and pipes connecting to nowhere, symbolizing production with no purpose. It’s a whimsical explosion of nonsense, yet there’s an underlying movement, whether real or imagined.
In Silvares’ bold and colorful works, movement is omnipresent. The painted objects transcend private and public spaces, existing beyond traditional dichotomies of male and female. They are fluid, gradient, and smooth, yet also sharp and defined.
For those in Berlin, “Bloom” is on view at Peres Projects, located at Karl Marx Allee 82, Friedrichshain, 10243 Berlin. The gallery is open Monday to Saturday, from 11 am to 6 pm. For more information, you can reach them at +49 30 275950770.
© Peres Projects