In this Series Untitled: paintings, objects and drawings, I continue to explore the concept of masks. An exploration that investigates masks not as artefacts, but as term to mask. The term has always been an important concept in my work. A fascination that dates back to my childhood in a Brazilian countryside, where masks, despite their religious and pagan connotations are also a source for misleading interpretations.
As artefacts, masks are, on the one hand, seen as a vehicle binding the material and spiritual world. Whilst on the other, they are seen as objects loaded with cultural meanings. A mask is a crafty device which has the ability to veil, seduce, protect, disguise, scare, seduce. Whereas masks, as to mask, encapsulate connotations of uncertain signification. Masking is ambiguous. To mask is to insinuate, to simulate.
Masking, in this series, is not a disguise element. To mask is to offer possibilities for other interpretations. Insinuate likeness and at the same time simulate it. To mask does not necessarily create new artworks, nor hides something, but allows paintings, objects and drawings, as artworks, to acquire a new aesthetic. Through masking the unspoken, unreal and invisible may or may not become reality.
