OBRAS
TIMÓTEO LOPES
Salvador (BA), 1988 l Lives and works in the city of Salvador (BA), Brazil.
Timóteo Lucas Lopes Brandão holds a degree in Fine Arts from the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Bahia and, currently, master's students from the same institution. He develops a research in the visual arts in which he explores a dialogue between traditional techniques and a contemporary language. Works with engraving, photography, three-dimensional objects and urban interventions. In his most recent works, the artist uses public space as support for the insertion of woodcuts made through large and medium format matrices representing both elements of nature and portraits of anonymous people.
The views on the city displace people from the real world to a fictional narrative where a violent and chaotic social context is permeated by the scarcity of basic rights. As an artist, she finds inspiration in everyday life and in the strength of the expressive gaze and the human figure. Abstraction becomes figurative sharpness when observed from afar, marked by its grooves, almost as if they were traces of the action of time relative to an individual. The experiences that led him to this path came through a close look at the world around him, always moved by a restlessness to explore new frontiers of artistic making and to be able to contribute, in some way, to growth and collective development through the democratization of art as a powerful means of social transformation.
INTERVIEW
How did you get into the art world?
My taste for drawing was still during childhood and most likely; this influenced me a lot to choose the course of Fine Arts when I took the entrance exam in 2011. From then on, the contact with artistic making expanded over time. I met new languages, new means of production, besides relating to other talented people who have always brought me new motivations and inspirations to move forward.
What do you understand as Fine Arts?
The plasticity of an object relates to its ability to be molded, modeled, or modified. The different means of making visual arts or visual arts dialogue more directly with the (dis)materialization of an idea or concept that the author is interested in treating, expanding and bringing to the focus of a debate. This idea can relate in the way an artist sees the environment that surrounds him, ideas or concepts that has been exposed throughout his life and somehow marked him through various emotions such as revolt, joy, sadness, happiness, etc.
How do you define your Art?
"I don't paint nature. I'm nature" Jackson Pollock. I like to think that an animal, a termite trail in the wood, rivers, traced what I do and valleys that dry are observed from above. I would define my works as the result of a healing process.
What are your greatest references in the world of the Arts?
I believe that each work dialogues with our state of mind now we see ourselves in front of an artistic work. My greatest references are in rock and primitive art, although, roughly speaking, my work dialogues much more with a technological language.
What are the main themes used in your works? And why is that?
Among several subjects covered, the most repeated themes are portraits, the human figure, natural landscapes and nature. Relate man as part of the environment in a figurative representation with a touch of expressiveness.
What are the main techniques used in your work? And which ones do you like to use the most?
I believe that the techniques I have developed the most in recent years have been those related to graphic arts such as xylography, lithography and chalcography. However, I also do not give up some experimentation with drawing, woodcarving, oil painting, collage, assembly of objects and various materials.
What do you seek to pass through your works to the viewer?
The clash between the human figure and the wood element after the carving process.
What are the best and greatest experiences in your artistic career?
My greatest experiences have always been at times when it becomes possible to echo the voices of visual artists that somehow mirror our society.
In your 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?
"It is the artist's duty to reflect his time" would say Nina Simone. The act of resisting and persisting in working with art in the current configurations of values of our essentially capitalist society is already, in itself, an act of protest. I see in the example of urban art a democratic vehicle for exchanging ideas and thoughts expressed in various technical and thematic forms. The cry of a graffiti or the silence of a blank wall? And how does a woodcut interact with this scenario?
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?
I imagine a traveling exhibition in which portraits of ordinary people from that place are created through the technique of woodcut. The various prints would be glued with resin in public places and the matrices given to the ones depicted.
Where do you want to get to as a Plastic Artist?
I want to develop with fluidity the productivity and circulation of my work.