DE SOUZA Edgar

Over the last decade the Brazilian artist Edgard de Souza has produced a strong, refined and relatively small body of work. His highly seductive and painstakingly crafted sculptures could be associated with a certain finish-fetish aesthetic typical of the New York 80s generation (Koons, Bickerton, and Vaisman come to mind). Yet there is very little clinical irony visible in the distressing and silent eroticism of the work. Besides his oblique and quite particular treatments of a set of various bodily themes, there is something that distinguishes his work from his peers in the Northern hemisphere. One could very well assume that these perfectly finished works were carried out by a dextrous local craftsman; in fact, it is de Souza himself who spends months in his studio slowly sculpting them. In polishing and sanding down any visible expressive sign of the artist's hands, his activity of sculpting bears a peculiar if not contradictory hand-made and Minimalist formal quality.

This show consisted of eight sculptures bearing more or less obvious human and organic traces. The materials are mostly lacquered wood, but also plaster and fur. The palette is white, pearl and cream. Yet the spectacular cleanliness of the pieces resides only on the surface, concealing deeper and stickier elements. A series of three somewhat abstract drips and drops hanging from the wall are on one extreme of the figurative-abstract axis of the show. These pieces of lacquered wood may resemble sinuous architectural reliefs, fine props for carnival decoration, or elegant, oversized pieces of adornment and jewellery, yet their smooth, pale and iridescent skin and the juxtaposition with the other more figurative pieces suggest male orgasmic secretions gone wild. Another piece consists of an elegant shell-like basin with the same slick and lustrous finish, now in white. With its anthropomorphic proportions, the piece could be a nest some kind of meditational refuge or maternal cavity. Although at first pleasing in spirit and physically capable of holding an adult, it is obviously and harshly uncomfortable. The uncanny syntax of initial allure and subsequent repulsion pervades all the works.