The exhibition by Brasilian artist Antonio Breves open now at Pure Evil Gallery in London features 8 artworks inspired by the landscapes, legends, contours and landmarks of Rio de Janeiro.

You are invited to an evening event with Antonio Breves on the 30th of July 6-9pm.

Please click here for a PDF catalogue of the show

These works made with the techniques of screeprint, painting and prints on paper and canvas are part of the series Tatuagem Carioca [Carioca Tattoo] which also comprises hand-painted metal plates and advertising signs on the city’s utility posts, to which successive layers of paper posters were pasted for over 40 years, eventually forming a thick, layered mass. The artist’s choice of material aims to emphasize the advertising displayed along the streets over the years, while commenting on the interventions that have forged the scenario, the geography, the legends and the character of the city in a contrastive urban tattoo.

Based on this anthropologic perspective, Breves deconstructs the advertising, overlaying signs of the city and of its identity to the images, scratches and wear produced by time and human manipulation.

In the painting Gávea Digital [Gávea Fingerprint], the artist places his fingerprint on the monumental face of a Phoenician king, which according to legend is sculpted into the rock outcropping called Pedra da Gávea. In the artwork Tatuagem Carioca, Rio de Janeiro’s emblematic image, Christ the Redeemer statue, is overlain on an advertising plate bearing the icon of a soft-drink brand.

By way of his imagetic collages, Breves sheds light on aspects of the city’s inhabitants, their habits, their legends and beliefs, in a ceaseless search to represent the city’s urban culture.