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Sculptural artist Vanderlei Lopes experiments with a multitude of materials, particularly in their abilities to create illusions and new associations. These bronze works create the impression of gold leaking from a given environment.
Lopes currently lives and works in São Paulo, having moved there from his birth city of Terra Boa, Paranà. His exploration of materiality has characterised his artistic practice, presenting sculptures that seem to respond to their surroundings and the human hand. Particularly in these polished bronze sculptures, which create the impression of gold dripping and spilling over gallery walls and flooring, Lopes creates a tension between the natural and controlled movement of material. His gold mirages bring a subtle sense of humour into the gallery, almost presenting a form of practical joke between solid and liquid forms, but the artist explains that his choice of material for these sculptures “has a strong relationship with tradition, with the alchemical sense of transformation, which suggests an idea of prescience.”
