Edu Silva’s (1979, São Paulo, Brazil) synthetic-poetic vocabulary focuses on two elements: colour and material. In his practice, materials culturally identified as noble, such as marble and linen, coexist with others commonly read as ordinary, such as cardboard and acrylic paint. The vivid chromaticism of his paintings, the main medium of his production, comes from the creation of areas that are imperfectly overlaid by other tonal layers, revealing in the limits of their forms the times before they were made. In this operation, Silva creates fissures, layers, in-between spaces, skins and shells. His compositions are abstract, but their immanent spatiality inclines perception towards imaginary topographies, as if they were unknown landscapes and territories.
 

The chromatic patches, more organic than geometric, that inhabit his canvases are uneven, so that one colour always predominates in the painting. The asymmetry in the occupation of the surface allows for political readings through social analogies about territorial tensions, without, however, interfering with the power of Edu Silva’s reflections on the pictorial field. In his sculptures, the artist uses cardboard and marble in arrangements in which the fragility of the former provides support for the latter, whose density and weight in turn pose a risk to the structure itself. Usually installed in the corners of architecture, these objects reconfigure our gaze on space, drawing our attention to its margins.