INNER COLORS – INTERVIEW WITH GABRIEL BOTTA
Some time ago I received a call from a very dear Brazilian friend of mine, telling me that he was following with great interest my research on contemporary art, and that he knew a young artist, from São Paulo, who might be "just right for us." I gave him my contact and a few days later Gabriel contacted me. We set the interview for the following week and with immense pleasure, together with Tomas, we chatted a lot, discovering a small world within the "Selva de Pedras" that is the city of São Paulo.
Gabriel is a very young artist, my age, who works and produces in the capital of São Paulo. He has his studio based in a famous neighborhood downtown, where many greats of the Brazilian art scene have worked and still work. But let's not confuse the place with the person, Gabriel is a very nice guy, polite and knows a lot about art.
Of Europe he knows the city of Barcelona, where he participated in a two-month residency. This experience left a taste of "unfinished" in him, so much so that he is looking for a way to return, who knows in the near future, to finish his research and continue his production.
In his works we see the instincts and messages of his inner self materializing on canvas through shapes and colors. In fact, unlike other artists we have interviewed, Gabriel is yes connected to the place where he lives and where he creates, but it is his feelings and thoughts that take center stage.
His research focuses on the translation of images into painting, through the study of gestures and the use of different materials and supports; each material and support, in fact, has its own precise characteristic, and manages to give, therefore, to the works, a variety of moments and gestures, manifesting in this way the fluidity of the times in which we live and Gabriel's artistic development. Through this timely research between materials and gestures, Botta's production narrative is built up and connected, finally giving shape to his works.
Ensaios: 2012/2014
His first works are called "ensaios" (rehearsals), where Gabriel begins to experiment, to translate gestures into painting and drawing, the support is paper which is sometimes replaced by a singular material, namely tarpaulins that cover truck loads, much sturdier than paper.
The difference is there, and the colors are particularly affected...His creativity is also affected, the former, the paper ones do not have a specific title, while the cover ones do. The size also increases significantly.
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Descontinuos: 2016
From paper to canvas, mixed media to oil. The series descontinuos, talks about life, moments and observation, the colors become, at times, darker, as if they wanted to hide something, the dimensions vary, but do not interfere with the narrative.
Iron:
Botta's research, as already pointed out, goes through the meticulous study of media, which are varied and very particular.
Iron plates are one of them.
In the Iron series, Gabriel rehearses his actions in the iron plates, precisely, which are mounted, assembled together and worked to accommodate his paintings.
Birds, landscape and some figures - Pescador:
Every artist has his favorite work, the one that stays inside and is hard to part with, and Gabriel Botta is no different.
Pescador is the work to which he is most attached, because it sanctions a precise phase in his production, that of the awareness of the path his work is taking.
Looking closely at the work, one notices that it has something familiar, in fact it is inevitable not to take a trip through art history and go fishing for a distant "La Peche" (1860-62) by Manet. Gabriel sets the attitude to a character only the one who performs the action of fishing by portraying him in his own way with great precision and respect, returning to the canvas medium and oil, as if to tell us that contemporary art can meet with modern art, can converse with it and make us travel as always among its colors. And this is thanks to the constant research and development of the artist's work, which can only be called such when it can masterfully achieve the link with what has been, giving the honor that history deserves, with an eye always on what will be.
Tomas and I really thank Gabriel so much for opening the doors of his atelier to us (even if only virtually), and for telling us about his research and his art.
You can visit his website, where you will find so much more of his beautiful work.
