Henrique Oliveira’s sculptures, coined ”Tapumes” for Portuguese word meaning boarding or fencing, are simply astounding. While a student in São Paulo, Brazil, Oliveira began reclaiming the remains of fences, which had begun to peel and break into layers, and used the pieces to create sculpture.
“The work with fragments of plywood found in the streets was born out of the open possibilities brought about by modern painting to identify aesthetic qualities on the world’s weary surfaces. This idea gave me room to apply wood on three-dimensional structures as an analogous to paint on canvas…Working with wood made me realize that painting can be thought beyond a genre of art – that is, it is a language capable of re-inventing itself, but is also a concept that can be applied to other forms of organizing the real.”
Oliveira started as a painter and began to notice that laminates and degrading wood surfaces resembled brushstrokes and decided to create “tridimensionals” using these materials. The results are enormous and angular.
This process has given way to another as Oliveira began to examine different properties of the materials:
“As I started to exploit the flexible properties of this material, I felt it necessary to use something more plastic. Them I started to build them using PVC tubes first, and next another kind of board that we call “flexible plywood”… It provides a first surface and the used plywood is used like a skin, covering it. The PVC tubes I buy at the store, and the flex plywood at the wood store. The used plywood is collected from the streets; I take them to my studio and pile off the layers, separating them by color, size, etc. In some works I control the color pouring diluted paint on the wood, getting them moist in order to make it easier to be manipulated.”
This new technique becomes more obvious, especially as he begins to create rooms and bulbous hallways.
The sustainable nature of this work should make Oliveira a shoe- in for a show in Portland. Let’s hope someone (nudge, nudge PAM) gets on board so we can witness this immense and overwhelming up close. If the photos blow you away, what must it be like to stand next to them?
