Henrique de Souza Oliveira (Ourinhos, SP, 1973). Painter and multimedia artist. Graduated in social communication in 1996, from Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM) and, in 2004, in painting, from Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (ECA/USP). In 2005, he received the Visualidade Nascente award, from the Centro Universitário Maria Antonia (Ceuma). Two years later, he earned a master's degree in visual poetics from ECA/USP, whose project received a scholarship from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (Fapesp).
Analysis
Henrique Oliveira's works do not respect a chronological order of substitution of one medium for another, since he produces them simultaneously, always focusing on the issues of painting. His paintings often appear to be collages of various brushstrokes, meanings, and colors overlapped, resulting in almost abstract patterns. They refer to informal abstraction without a gestural impression. Oliveira is a researcher of technique and material, a character that is perceptible in his works and in his master's degree research, entitled Painting and Pictorial Language: Techniques and Materials in Brazilian Contemporary Art (2007), in which he researched the properties of paint and the possibility of using wood scraps.
In the series of installations Tapumes, started in 2003, Oliveira also discusses painting as language. They consist of juxtaposed and overlapped reused wooden sheets worn out by time. The artist subverts the original function of these boards, usually erected to keep unfinished construction sites from being seen or accessed. Some site-specific works from this series present reliefs that project from their base. In others, the artist creates rounded volumes (as if the boards were swollen), measuring up to three meters high and touching the ceiling of the exhibition spaces.
The Tapumes later derived the Túnel series, whose structures create cave-like rooms and galleries that provoke and draw the observer's gaze thanks to their cavities. This series of works keeps up with the reuse of wooden material, but leaves behind the flat surface. The series Nuvem, from 2007 and 2008, consists of mattresses and pillows stuck together, forming a clustered whole suspended in the air. They still present his interest in colors and textures, although this time, the volumes overlap in a more fragmented way.
HENRIQUE Oliveira. In: ENCICLOPÉDIA Itaú Cultural de Arte e Cultura Brasileiras. São Paulo: Itaú Cultural, 2021. Available at: <http://enciclopedia.itaucultural.org.br/pessoa279504/henrique-oliveira>. Accessed on: June 25, 2021. Encyclopedia entry. ISBN: 978-85-7979-060-7