ARTUR RIOS

INTERVIEW

How did you get into the art world?

Every child likes to draw and paint, with me it was no different. But not all are still stimulated and interested in artistic expression throughout life. Now because they were not supported by the family, targeting other areas that are legitimized in their education, sometimes because their surroundings did not support the artistic expression of the child. So that ends up being seen as a "kid's thing." I see my family as a great support for believing in the value of making art.

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What do you understand as Fine Arts?

I understand the fine arts by every form of expression of visual matter and, I would also say, tactile. What we can see or touch is expressed as an extension of the subjectivity of the artist.

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How do you define your Art?

I believe that my art has technical similarities with Impressionism, has a foot in surrealism, is figurative and is closer to fantasy than concrete reality, even if it dialogues with the latter. My paintings are not, for the most part, completely surreal in their representation of the unlikely, because they represent unusual situations, although they are part of a possible and already documented reality. Such as the encounter of wild animals with human environments. When we see pictures like these, our reaction is of a certain astonishment as if they were a hallucination, but that is in fact something very real and proper to our life. In a way, I play with this language of the unconscious, full of symbolism, using a certain creative spontaneity that emerges without much conscious control, but I keep my feet still with a certain firmness on the ground.

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What are your greatest references in the world of the Arts?

As a child, I loved snooping around my mother's books that featured artists from the past. My look, since then, was attracted by artists like Hieronymus Bosch (especially in the "weird" aspect of his art), Goya (in his darkest and most dramatic phase, in which I identify with the abuse of shadow/light effect) and Salvador Dalí (in his compositional creativity). Throughout life, several other references and influences were appearing. Visual artists such as Aleksandra Waliszewska, G. Colwell, Boris Vallejo, Oleg Vdovenko, Eliran Kantor, Joyce Lee, Julia Soboleva, Adalberto Alves and Nelson Magalhães are current references i contemplate. I consider some games also as art, because I can immerse and explore meanings in them, not being just mere entertainment. Games like Diablo 1 have always inspired me since my teenage years in its dark aspect and its apocalyptic narrative, and Skyrim has even been used as a visual reference to commake some scenarios of my painting. Cinema has always been a great reference and influence, and I can mention some films: The Terminator Angel (1962), Nosferatu (1979), Antichrist (2009) and Border (2018).

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What are the main themes used in your works? And why is that?

My artwork speaks a lot about our relationship with the literal and symbolic animal, and the ecological relationship body-environment. I refer to the animal that lives on the same planet as us, and we usually interpret its appearance in human places as an invasion. That is, the non-belonging entering inadequate territory, deflating a tendency of colonizing thinking from the ecological perspective, since we can also interpret that we invade the space of the animal, and understand the need for space that each life cries out. I also refer to the symbolic animal, as the different provokes our need for common language in coexistence, bringing exercise of otherness, and also to what each one can represent with his body, from his specificity of species, as reminders of general instinctive and visceral aspects that also exists in us humans. This same animality permeates the human bodies that I paint, usually in a symbiotic relationship with nature, as if all the elements were a single manifestation.

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What are the main techniques used in your work? And which ones do you like to use the most?

I often mix the paint directly on the canvas itself and highlight the direction of the brush stroke, as is quite common in Impressionism painters, instead of mixing in the godê and then transferring. I do this in a very particular way in some situations, so much so that, humorously, I call this technique "embolato". I make loose dots on the screen with various shades, and mix them so that a certain texture is created, and that the mixture is not perfect, creating an interesting spectrum of tones and a seductive texture. I emphasize the direction of the ink mass, not just the two-dimensional drawing of the pure form. As if it took advantage of its texture and came to approach a low relief.
 

What do you seek to pass through your works to the viewer?

I seek words that cross the viewer as the wild, the sensual, the mysterious and the symbolic. The wild is explored mainly in the body, which in turn already leads to sensual, in the way of representing the hair or skin, exploring quite the texture of the paint in the paintings, as a tactile seduction. The mysterious and the symbolic go together, because a composition that brings an unresolved meaning, that instills the observer to want to understand, is an invitation to the symbolic, as a relational field to be explored and known. I always try to bring a year of mystery to my work, because the task of unraveling them makes everything more interesting.

I like to explore the image of the animal body in a provocative way, in which art does not reveal itself, for those who are interested in looking at an image and letting the imagination flow, exploring the symbolism of "can be", and not simply what one is literally. I like an observer who stays in front of my work and dialogues with him, project his perception of life into what he sees. We need to meditate to delve deeper, so something inside us fits in.

One side of me would like to broaden the viewer's mind and subjectivity. In my work there is a certain ode to life in its amplitude, which increases the sensitivity to life and nature in its originality. Another side of me knows I have no control over it, and people see what they want in my work. In general, I have faith that there will be delight at the beauty of the manifestations of life and appreciation of what is natural and organic.

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What are the best and greatest experiences in your artistic career?

Honestly, when someone demonstrates a true and spontaneous like of my work, and also makes an effort to acquire it, that's what I consider as the best experience for me. Participating in edicts, selections and exhibitions is a way to bring a feeling of deserving to me in relation to the world, but the real and direct personal exchange makes me feel in the skin in a more sensitive way that it is worth sharing my work.

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In his work is there a kind of protest beyond what is obviously seen? If so, which one? If not, is there a theme that awakens your willingness to protest?

When I see my work, it is possible to feel questioned about the relationship of the body and the environment that lives (ecology), the colonizing and territorial thought, and the symbolic animal that manifests itself in our lives in an unconscious and instinctive way.

Who defines the ownership of a territory on the planet? What are the ways for life to manifest itself? Is different life legitimate? How to live with the different? Is it possible to escape our own animality? How to reconcile our morals with our animal being? Everything that happens about the relationship with nature, the visceral and the animal, can be a form of provocation and literal protest (what is seen) and symbolic (what can be attributed meaning).

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Are you interested in doing a traveling exhibition? If so, how do you imagine this exhibition? Would you know what topic you would like to address?

Yes. I believe that there are two valid paths to exhibition: one that subverts and seeks an audience unwell to the artistic world, as a path of education and habit to exercise the gaze; and another that reaches people who normally circulate already in artistic environments and have a more sensitive look at it. Particularly, I prefer the second path, but I support the first. The themes I usually approach and research arouse interest in the realization of exhibitions.

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Where do you want to get to as a Visual Artist?

First of all, I'd like to survive only with the art I make. That means paying the bills, having reservations and leisure. Even if it's not easy. I cannot deny these first conditions that underpin other achievements. I would also like to see my work spread around the world, it means expanding its circulation, so that I can enter into constant dialogues with people, and know what is in them in my work, and what is in them. I don't have megalomania, I like to take a step every day.