Art | Bruno Miguel’s Sculptural Regurgitations of History

NEW YORK––An immersive ecology of fantastical, distorted forms appear to erupt and spew from ordinary ceramic objects like plates, bowls and tea cups and their saucers in Rio de Janiero artist Bruno Miguel’s sculptures like in his large Essas Pessoas na Sala de Jantar (Those People In the Dining Room) series.

Through the conflation of personal and popular artifacts, Miguel reflects a nostalgic vision of his universe that rests uneasily on the edge of painting. ––VOLTA NY

Featured image: from Essas Pessoas na Sala de Jantar, 2018, Spray paint, cold porcelain, polyurethane foam, wire, acrylic resin and papier-mâché on porcelain, variable dimensions

Influenced by Tropicália‘s musical and artistic experimentalism, Miguel’s use of electric colors and unstructured forms juxtaposed with antique porcelain reframes the distinctive––often regurgitated––elements of Brazilian history and national identity, Art Fuse writes.

There is a vague, chaotic diffusion of colors which seems as if they were thrown together at random. It is quite probable that Miguel is trying to portray the diversity of Brazil and the vividness which merges the history with the contemporary, one of his attempt being to revive those elements of culture which are so ordinary that they often never find a representation in arts.

VOLTA NY, during which Miguel exhibited his works earlier this year (March 8 – 11, 2018), adds the artist also draws upon traditional Carnival traditions in his employment of polyurethane foam, resin and papier-mâché emphasizing his work’s irreverent appropriations of history and imbue a sense of nostalgia with “the layered histories of Rio de Janeiro’s landscape from a critical periphery.”

Walk through Miguel’s installation in this short video:

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