Planares Osmar Dalio

01/06/2017 - 29/07/2017

Galeria Leme presents the first solo exhibition by Osmar Dalio in its space. Entitled “Planares”, the exhibition features four large-scale sculptures of corten steel that create a tension with the exhibition space and a balanced dialogue between each other. This show is the result of a long period of research and maturation of the artist since the last time that his work was presented to the public in an individual exhibition in the year 2000.

Osmar Dalio is part of an important generation of artists from São Paulo trained at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation in the 1980s. His research on the balance and tension between forms and the space that contains them, as well as between the interplay between materiality and void within a sculpture, has interesting parallels with important artistic researches in the history of Brazilian art, such as those of Franz Weissmann, Willys De Castro and José Resende. Initially working with perishable materials, making rubber and wood pieces, among others, Osmar Dalio began transitioning his research to metallic structures in 1988. Which guarantees him a great ease in working with this material acquired over the years.

The sculptures especially designed for Galeria Leme’s exhibition display a kind of inherent monumentality. The “architecture” of each piece is articulated from operations that explore the materiality, weight, strength and balance of the corten steel. The artist’s creation process starts from a first idea developed through drawing. Then he elaborates a small model in which he tests the shapes and proportions of each sculpture. Then the piece is manufactured industrially through a strong collaboration between the artist and a group of engineering technicians. Intersections, cuts and juxtapositions are carefully calculated in a process that combines mathematical precision with an intuitive impetus. Some cuts mirror themselves while others enter the volume, creating cavities and recesses that exert a magnetic attraction on the viewer’s body. This careful balance between matter and emptiness gives the tons of metal a feeling of lightness and movement. The materiality of the pieces is also carefully worked, these are induced to oxidation processes by means of special chemicals, which gives them a perfect finish, an intriguing hue and a velvety texture. Its manufacture denies any kind of manual trace of the artist’s work, which seems to emphasize the nature of iron. Commonly used in architecture and engineering, this material symbolically represents the historical quest for a human “order” over the natural, strongly allied to the importance of technological progress. This historical heritage seems to impregnate the geometric forms of Osmar Dalio’s sculptures, who gain even more symbolic importance when they enter into dialogue with the architecture of the Galeria Leme’s building.

 

About the artist:

Osmar Dalio, São Paulo, Brazil, 1959. Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.

Bachelor of Fine Arts from FAAP, São Paulo, in 1982, having studied with Regina Silveira, Júlio Plaza and Nelson Leirner. Masters degree at Chelsea College of Art ad Design, London, on the guidance of Helen Chadwick, Cornelia Parker and Richard Deacon.

Main solo exhibitions: Galeria Millan, São Paulo, Brazil (2000); Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1991); Galeria Macunaíma, Fundação Nacional de Arte / Instituto Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud, São Paulo, Brazil (1990).

Main group exhibitions: Panorama da Arte Atual Brasileira, Formas Tridimensionais, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; 21st São Paulo International Biennial, curated by João Candido Galvão. Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (1991); Macunaíma 89, Fundação Nacional de Arte / Instituto Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil; 11th Salão Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Fundação Nacional de Arte / Instituto Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Acquisition Award) (1989); Anathemata, curated by Aracy Amaral. Museu de arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Arte na Rua 2. Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, Central de Outdoor, São Paulo, Brazil (1984), among others.

His work is part of the public collections: Ferrovia Paulista FEPASA, Júlio Prestes Station, São Paulo, Brazil and the Brasilia Art Museum, Brasília, Brazil.