Drawing first offered writer and visual artist Thiago Barbalho, a means of expressing himself unencumbered by his writer's block. Working in different dimensions and with different materials (coloured pencils, graphite, spray, oil, oil pastel, and marker on paper), his compositions propose intricate universes of form, where shapes, references and colours intertwine to form somewhat psychedelic narratives that challenge the relation between figure and background. Barbalho understands drawing as an ancestral technology, which spans ages and cultures. The artist's visual research seeks to understand drawing as the sign of a presence and the relationship between the mind—imagination—and the body—gesture—, between consciousness and reality.
Read MoreAccording to critic and curator Kiki Mazzucchelli, 'working essentially in drawing, Barbalho produces extremely intricate, but unplanned compositions, where the multiplicity of images, symbols and colour fields merge to create uninterrupted vibrant surfaces.' The apparent chaos of his images arises from his gestures, which resist any formal logic. In fact, we encounter in his work an array of fragments, of references from different spheres that intertwine popular culture from the Brazilian Northeast, characters and cartoons, as well as signs and symbols of the consumerism and mass culture. Together with Barbalho's research and interpretations within the fields of philosophy, anthropology and the mysticism underlying relations between matter and thought, his drawings establish a visual universe that is in constant revolution.
Thiago Barbalho was born in 1984, in Natal, Brazil. He lives and works in São Roque, Brazil. Recent solo exhibitions include: Correspondência, at Galeria Marília Razuk (2019), in São Paulo, Brazil; Thiago Barbalho, at Kupfer Project Space (2018), in London, United Kingdom (2018). Main group shows are: Electric Dreams, at Nara Roesler (2021), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; AVAF, at Casa Triângulo (2018), in São Paulo, Brazil; Rocambole, at Pivô (2018), in São Paulo, Brazil, and at Kunsthalle Lissabon (2019), in Lisbon, Portugal; Voyage, at Galeira Bergamin & Gomide (2017), in São Paulo, Brazil; Shadows & Monsters, at Gasworks (2017), in London, United Kingdom. His works are including in important institutional collections, such as: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Text courtesy Galeria Nara Roesler.
