João Salomão: circo de visões
june 1, 2024 - July 27, 2024
Gallery 495 is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, João Salomão: CIRCO DE VISÕES (CIRCUS OF VISIONS), open for viewing from June 1, 2024 through July 27, 2024. The solo exhibition will contain new works including paintings, works on paper, and sculpture. Circo de Visões encapsulates the symbolism of Salomão’s paintings into sensational landscapes that perform in his spiritual circus.
Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro to a family of artists involved in the tropicalia movement, João Salomão moved to New York City in the early 90’s. Immersed in the Lower East Side music, skateboarding, and graffiti scenes, Salomão incorporates his sense of abstraction by observing daily life. Aspects of street-life are recorded into a daily diary and transformed through gesture into energetic paintings of color, shape, and texture.
The newly developed works use an assemblage of found objects including construction site ephemera, scrap metals, and journal entries from Salomão’s father - artist and poet Jorge Salomão. The added materials breathe into a new life for the works; the application of spray paint onto the canvas becomes a symbol for utility markings drawn on asphalt. The gestural application of paint, charcoal, and fabric is composed rhythmically as a meditative practice to encompass Salomão’s spirituality. Bringing elements from the street onto the canvas in floating shapes of texture and color adds movement and dimension, underlying the relationship between chaos and harmony.
In addition to new paintings and works on paper, Salomão will exhibit Trituração, a sculptural homage to Marcel Duchamp’s 1913 Bicycle Wheel. His connection to the dadaist sculptor is akin to his explorations of the avant-garde artists of Brazil’s tropicalia movement. As an artist-forward space, Gallery 495 celebrates the freedom of Salomão’s new breadth of work. Exploring deeper into his work, Salomão observes his day to day life through symbolism and spirituality to transcend reality and paint the world more harmoniously.
Photo by Lorenzo Fariello