Horizontes #11

The series Horizontes (2016) forms an exciting new development in the artist’s cut-out drawings, after the earlier series Nucleações (from 2007).

Each cut-out drawing comprises a full block of sheets of paper. Like a crystal or the earth’s crust the drawings are developed in layers. These new works are the first in which Sposati has added a painted first page, bringing the color to the surface and creating a more immediate visceral experience. The layered quality is further emphasized by the fact that the underlying pages have been painted until the edges.

The drawings are presented frontally in a Plexiglas box-frame, showing a 3-dimensional composition of colors and shapes. The full form of the drawing, however, can only be seen by peeling off the layers of paper.

In Sposati’s earlier series, this ‘peeling’ feature/action would lead to the discovery of elements or forms that bring back to memory certain aspects of the Neoconcrete movement. The series Horizontes, instead, refers to compositions of nature, organic life and inorganic matter as can be found together in certain areas of Brazil. The drawings thus create a memory of a landscape through a layering of experiences: of dryness of earth, coloring of stone by minerals, rock moss near a waterfall, flowers and leaves crushed on the floor, sky reflected in the sea.