PAULO NIMER PJOTA

On view is ‘Terror (2021)’, a large-scale work that employs the common tropes of terror, bats, pumpkins with grotesquely carved faces that seem to come to life, and strange resin claws that imply some unknown monstruous creature—these are symbols associated with the fall season, with the darkness of night, the day of the dead, the thinning of the veil between the living and the spirit realm.

Paulo Nimer Pjota (São José do Rio Preto, 1988) lives and works in São Paulo.The starting point of Paulo Nimer Pjota’s works is the nature of collectively originated phenomena. He works with historic symbolism and imagery alongside pop iconography from contemporary culture. His works approximate a kind of visual collage, working with raw canvas, metal sheets, ceramic, and resin objects, we might consider the practice a kind of polyphonic dialogue. Pjota has said the work often reveals itself to him in the process of making. There is communion with ancient history in these pieces alongside deep reverence for the symbols of our time and the vernacular of our streets and our cities. The artist usually employs, large unstretched canvas’ and metal or iron sheets that incorporate detailed renderings of plants, vases, isolated words, cartoon and historical characters that ultimately form a master composition or constellation. Imbedded in this dialogue of images and objects emerges a larger commitment to storytelling about who we are and where we come from. Inspired by the traditional way that houses were painted where he grew up, the artist uses tempera to give pigment to his canvases with a clear deference for the creativity and cultural landscape of our everyday lives. Many of the works employ masks, gorgons, squash and pumpkins, and a multiplicity of vessels for carrying water or spirits, that the artist draws from pre-Columbian, African, and classical Greek art history. The archaeological artifacts are juxtaposed with cartoons, superheroes, graffiti tags, spills and stains and all manner of artifacts collected from our contemporary life.