Constructive Interference I

"Constructive Interference : A Collaboration

by Duda Penteado, paintings and photography by Luiz C. Ribeiro

The juxtaposition of painted and photographed images is not new, having been with us for around a century. So one is always interested if an old idea can be given a new vitality, a new aesthetic expression. I propose that this has been achieved in Constructive Interference.

So just how has this come about? I think the success of this collaboration rests on the expressive content inherent in the approach to art making of each of these artists and in the nature of a Brazil that earnestly is being scrutinized in relation to its inherent, natural transcendence and the apprehension that its survival is at risk. Because of this combination of unease and beauty, these images are unsettling. And they are simultaneously particular to Brazil and universal. Yet the sense of a reinvented spirit of tropicalismo would seem to render more of a regional effect.

The artistic devices used to obtain this effect are the flat surface of the photographic plane that relies on our memory to recall three-dimensional reality; and by contrast the viscous, low relief projection of pigment from this flat surface that actually recedes away from the eye in natural aerial perspective. This ostensible disconnect is held in check by the mystical, spiritual, cosmic sensibility that Penteado and Ribeiro are able to project.

In two of these works, the lower trunks of trees and their exposed roots dangle above the landscape photographed in soft focus. In one picture, a child and a dog — obvious images of innocence and guiltlessness — are perched in a tree suspended in the same uncertain future of Brazil as its flora and fauna. The scene is completed by fluttering, falling, leaf shaped lozenges of cerulean blue sky.

A few years ago, I asked Penteado if he would consider being more of a Brazilian artist as an artist using Brazil as a point of reference. I had mentioned that Brazil is on the ascendant despite some ominous aspects for its natural habitat. It appears that these images speak of the unusual juxtapositions, extreme contradictions and peculiar harmonies that make up Brazil. I imagine that the title the artists have chosen for their exhibition refers to the insights that are manifest in their way of seeing Brazil -- and beyond Brazil.

George Nelson Preston, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor, Art History, City College of CUNYCo-Founding Director, Museum of Art and Origins, NYC."