Galeria Leme ends 2018 with the third solo exhibition by the artist Mauro Piva. The show brings together his latest production, featuring a set of six paintings and eight sculptures, as well as a large site specific installation.

The project was firstly thought by Piva while facing some paint marks (drips and drained paints) left on the sink of his studio, a white and smooth surface. These spontaneous splashes, discarded during the processes of cleaning the brushes and godets, leave traces of different shapes and colours, which were later used by the artist to compose a new study on the possibilities of representing himself and his daily work. As part of his research, Piva investigates concepts related to identity / non-identity, as well as exploring the possibilities of drawing, prioritizing the manual work of painting, even in his sculptures.

For this show, the artist continues to work on the potential of the visuality of colours and the possibilities of the three-dimensional format and self-portrait, exposing the intimacy of his creation processes in the atelier, through the representation in paintings and sculptures that establishes new relations between the real and the simulacrum, figuration and abstraction. While these random drops reveal the richness of details, showing the potentiality of textures and colour gradations of the ink droplets, the oil on canvas paintings also simulate abstraction, leaving to the interpretation of each one whether they are figurative works or not.

It is also at up to the viewer to identify the nature of the sculptures, carvings in wood, and then painted with acrylic and oil, as they are much more similar to canvas (or chassis), than properly sculptures. In addition, a site specific installation completes the exhibition’s project, working as a large sculpture / painting that extrapolates the boundaries of the canvas, occupying the entire length of the wall, front and back.