In his first solo exhibition for a UK public gallery, Brazilian artist Tonico Lemos Auad presents a collection of work and a new commission at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea.
The artist has lived in London for the last 15 years but studied for his first degree in urban architecture in Sao Paulo. Coming to the UK on a scholarship, Auad graduated from Goldsmiths with an MA in Fine Art in 2000. Invited to take up a residency at Gasworks following his degree show, he first came to wider notice in the Beck’s Futures exhibition in 2004, where he exhibited animals made out of carpet ‘fluff’.
Since then he has had considerable success, exhibiting internationally in places as far afield as Moscow, Sao Paulo, Colorado, Japan and Paris. He was one of the commissioned artists in the Folkestone Triennial in 2011. His work is held in collections around the world, including the Tate and Zabludowicz collections, as well as the Israel Museum.
Auad’s art is characterised by a love of playing with natural materials, and it tends to be highly designed. Drawing in various guises is central to his practice but he also works with photography, sculpture and installation.
His pieces are often site-specific and impermanent in nature, but the De La Warr show has several examples of work that is less mutable. Notable amongst them are his delicate and subtle ‘textile drawings’ (below) in which the weave of linen fabric is manipulated to create patterns and to allow light to shine through.
How do you describe yourself and your practice?
I studied architecture in Sao Paulo and my artwork relates a lot to architecture and the questions it throws up, like how people interact with space, how people negotiate space. As an artist I like to discover new things but there are always dialogues with earlier works and I consciously use layers in my work.
Can you explain your interest in textiles?
I think in the beginning I had a very unconscious fascination for textiles, so the carpet animals were the first formalised contact with textiles in my artwork. And it was made in a very unknowledgeable way, without knowing much about the medium. It was very much about dealing with entropy, disorganising the structure and then proposing a new order for that structure. The ‘disconstruction’ of elements is my attempt to understand more about them. The approach is that of an intellectual rather than of a trained person; I have just enough knowledge of mediums so that I have a vocabulary to communicate with whoever is helping me to develop the work. Within that process each of these environments has its own specific system and vocabulary. You enter the landscape and learn. Obviously as an artist you want to create – you want to propose something new, different, transformative – so deconstructing gives you that blank canvas with something that is already there.
You have a lot of metaphorical content in your work. How did you develop your visual language and can you give some clues about how metaphor is deployed?
The chalk sculptures [above] I did during the Folkestone Triennial were intended to be worn out by the sea. The chalk was sourced from a quarry in the countryside in the Midlands, but some of the chalk had sea fossils in it. I was seduced with that straightaway. So I thought that was a good thing to work with. Stones tell the history of millions of years. But then the juxtaposition is to place letters in gold or silver of extracts from the poems of Pablo Neruda. I use him because his poetry is so strong in highlighting the relationship that humans have with such a dramatic environment as the sea. The sea shifts human emotion. But you can’t read the poems because the letters are tiny and inscribed in the stones as if they are fossils… I was trying to create a resonance with the experience of landscape and sea.
The tin can installation [above] is a very classic contemporary gesture which is like Duchamp, taking a readymade which is very strong but mundane, but by highlighting one detail you have a message. So for example, you have a ‘Coke Cherry’ can with an image of two cherries. I have sanded off everything else and just left the cherries. So it is reusing and rewriting what is already there with your own text.
How does your audience relate to the work? What do you want them to take away from it?
I try to always work with things that are very mundane, within easy reach, like cloth, stones, plants, things that are very present in our daily life. I think that immediately creates some response, some kind of intimacy and complicity because you are working with something that everyone experiences at some level on a daily basis. Then I add the layers, a poetic layer and other influences.
How did you approach the commission for this show?
At first the idea was to bring existing works. Then the curator noticed that there is a clear subject that appears in lots of works, which in different ways is landscape. We started talking about different landscapes here and abroad – seascapes, and the tradition that British people have of gardening. So we came up with the idea of doing a commission based on seascape and gardening. I’m very interested in how people are affected psychologically with gardening, via medicinal plants and as a therapy practice. Because there are lots of different avenues this could lead to I decided to create something very open. So I’ve made a kind of planted plaza or square within the exhibition where things can happen. We’ve organised a lot of talks to go with it, which will take place within the gallery, using the work as a platform.
How do you find the process of producing a commission?
It’s very raw, it’s uncomfortable, it’s painful because you have to deliver, but I know that the outcome is always very worthwhile at different levels. It keeps me fresh, keeps me interested, keeps me working. Just to have the opportunity to do all this research, meet all these people, do something different – it is very painful but as an artist you just have to get used to it!
Tonico Lemos Auad’s exhibition continues until 10 April 2016, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. The artist is ‘In Conversation’ on Saturday 5 March, 2pm. www.dlwp.com
More on a-n.co.uk:
Use the Q&A tag for more interviews, including filmmaker Marianna Simnett, Hyundai Commission artist Abraham Cruzvillegas, and UTOPIA 2016 festival’s Ruth Potts
