Joelle Lifestyle - The World at Home

He’s handsome, he’s charming, he’s kind and above all, he’s talented.

Gustavo Von Ha, landed recently in Manhattan from Sao Paulo with the clear intention of, how we say in Brazil “Botar pra Quebrar” (to break the city), with his new exhibition: Private Addiction. Born in 1977 in the city of Presidente Prudente, the artist Gustavo Von Ha today is not only a painter, but also a video artist and a draftsman.

According to a renowned Brazilian journalist and curator of many local and international exhibitions in the Tapies Foundation in Barcelona, Marseilles, and Brussels, Cristina Burlamaqui, attributes Gustavo’s work as follower of pop art footsteps. ” Its language - quote- ” Is drawn from the imagery of industrialization and mass consumption. The paintings and drawings on mirrors theorize and put into practice the craft of the ancient calligraphers, creating concepts based on images selected from the artist’s everyday life, ”

She carries on saying that : ” The reduced scale makes it possible to observe that the drawings thus arranged lead to a serial representation of diverse variations of fragments of the real world… they thrust the viewer “through the looking-glass” into close-ups possessing simultaneous focal points. In this series, visually does not rely directly upon perception of the physical world itself but, instead, upon an illusion of reality, to simulate visual resonance, as if the observer was, in fact, creating the work right there…”

He calls me from the airport to tell me a friend of his is hosting a crowd in his honor on a downtown loft and invites me kindly to attend. He says my presence is fundamental at the reception, I decide to believe him , and I go. It’s pouring rain, the entrance door is filled with wet umbrellas and towels. At the door a beautiful South American lady shows us inside to the apartment. A vast collection of white candles is spread all along the beautiful space between small altars featuring Indian gods terracotta statues, exotic prints and a deeply red Venetian stucco wall in the perfect Feng Shui school teachings. The host an important productions entrepreneur introduces himself with a smile and, warmly invites to feel at home.

The small crowd is very a-propos for Gustavo’s introduction in the New York art scene . Several charismatic PR, handsome architects from the West Coast, art curators, casting model agencies, owners and directors of important art galleries. Among them Lelong , Sara Meltzer and , Goff+Rosenthal. Dinner is Middle Eastern, the beautiful kitchen is Italian , lamps are from designer Tom Dixon, the major bedroom art work are wide windows featuring Broadway downtown hectic but silent traffic movement and lights bed cover is Missoni its colors reflecting under a dim light on an intense thai silk upholstered magenta wall.

Gustavo is inviting everyone to the opening of his exhibition on Tuesday. Enchanting all by the spontaneity of his charisma and youth, he-explains his work with his own words in an English coming from a true and authentic Brazilian soul. ” The series of mirrored ‘balls’ is fruit of an exquisite elaboration. I utilize new technologies as I did not use to, employing industrialized materials such as acrylic, giving a metal look to the ball’s surface, bringing up a mirroring effect carefully controlled by silver to get the mirrored effect.

The several layers of paint introduced in the ‘balls’ – pink, magenta, green, violet and deep blue – reveal an intimate work in the battle of the pictorial gesture and the mirroring of analogous images. I use to call my work as drawing-painting. This work creates concepts from daily life images of any visual artist, so that the drawing on the mirrors appear as a graphic inscription of gesture, based on the sum of convex planes of the reflections.

The “mirror” is, both an attractive and repulsive object of desire which is linked to the cult/alienation of image. Avery sensitive subject at a time when image is a pervasive force in contemporary society. The mirror, both physically and symbolically, is for me the fulcrum of psychological understanding and development. I have been using the physical material to construct or imitate the mirror to undermine its symbolic connotations, challenging, at the same time, our own self-image.

I choose are shiny and reflective materials, as they already seem to have a life most of my work is inspired by the memories I have and images I have taken in the countryside of São Paulo.. The work creates multiple reflections of the viewer, making material our assumptions regarding self and social perception.

I make form out of material, but I also make material out of form. The work can be considered drawing or sculpture or assemblage or perhaps a combination of all of the above. It us up to the viewer to bring their frames of reference for this.

Ok, dear Gustavo, you explained it all. Us the viewers now hopefully will check your mirrors out.

Good luck in New York City and as we say: Sarava.

Joelle’s Tips;

The exhibition:
The Firehouse Art Gallery at Nassau Community College Presents
Private Addiction: An Installation by Gustavo Von Ha
March 11 – April 16, 2008

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