Nara Roesler Rio de Janeiro is pleased to present Infinitos outros, a solo exhibition of new works by celebrated Brazilian artist José Patrício, opening on May 20. The show features 13 works from four distinct series – Kinetic Progression, Chromatic Affinities, Kinetic Spirals and Chromatic Connections – in which the artist exercises the creation of a unity through the possibilities of the unforeseen, and is accompanied by an essay written by curator Ariana Nuala.
"This exhibition at Nara Roesler, in Rio, attempted to give a certain unity to the elements used and how they were employed - in this case, the object being buttons. On the other hand, the works have a kinetic aspect to them, that also creates a sense of unity amongst the works," says the artist.
The works with buttons have 3,600 sub-squares each, and only one central space remains empty. The artist uses a grid with 80 spaces on one side and 80 on the other, "totaling 3,600 squares that are filled with the buttons." The ways of filling the squares are many, they are infinite, not only through the nature of the elements in use, but also through the sequence that can be created in the structure." The exceptions are Kinetic Spirals II (2022) and Kinetic Spirals III (2022), two diptychs which have a kinetic bias and use the structure of 112 dominoes, another recurrent object in the artist's work.
According to the artist, repetition is the master key of his work, "Like Nelson Rodrigues' phrase – "I wouldn't exist without my repetitions" - "each concretization of a work manages to be different. I always repeat, but also always have different results. It is something that moves me, exercising getting new results from a given structure", he explains.
José Patrício does not use projects or drawings to create his works. "Each work has its own requirements. I work with very precise procedures and I deal with the unforeseen a lot, with randomness. Most of the time I don't know what the final result will be. This doesn't worry me much either", he affirms.
Another recurrent aspect in José Patrício's work are the spirals. Facing almost infinite possibilities of ho to combine the buttons, he works with two opposite movements, which generate two inverse spirals. He points out that "the spiral is what helps me structure the work and the assembly of the work happens gradually, either from the center to the edge, or from the edge to the center."
"My work is very rational, but it deals with this other aspect that is chance, the question of the imponderable, the improbable. It's always this play between order and chance. Just the fact of organizing these elements in a grid, in a mesh, this order already brings something of harmony. Harmony that can be given inevitably by this organization, independent of choice".
