Rafa Silvares Válvula de escape - Red room Tarsila, 2023

Time appears arrested, space collapsed onto itself in Rafa Silvares work. Amidst the seductiveness of its smooth surface and the visual pleasure of expanses of brilliant color, we have an intuitive understanding of the allegorical nature of these works. Their frozen movements evoke the end of a belief in the inherent benefit of progress: the static fluidity of its masses, be they natural-looking formations (water, mud, lava), expelled from human-made machinery (pipes, pistons, washers), or waves of sound are in a kind of limbo. Caught in the paradox of agitated stillness, liquids overflow, bursting bright from pistons or pipes, from the ground or the sky. The absence of depictions of human beings in the paintings is counteracted by the feeling of looking at a human-made world.