TOZ
PERMUTAÇÕES CROMÁTICAS
Curated by: Vanda Klabin
08|23|23 - 09|23|23
Toz’s artistic trajectory, from its inception, has been guided by the restless exploration of numerous poetic paths. Born in Salvador and residing in Rio de Janeiro, the fabric of urban life awakened his early interest in documenting the memories imprinted on public walls to expose his experiences. This activity led to many identifications and brought forth an aesthetic potential, a unique universe for his work. Partaking in the emergence of graffiti-related movements, Toz encountered an iconographic plasticity evident in various urban art forms and in the multiplicity of his acclaimed toy art characters like Nina and Schimu. In his series known as “The Vendors of Joy,” inspired by the beach vendors selling plastic toy balls, colorful circles are presented, along with an exploration of a pictorial vocabulary that opened up new avenues for the inclusion of geometric elements and chromatic fields.
In his previous paintings, he already displayed signs of an iconography of colored planes in the process of articulation — multiple ways of seeing that hinted at alternative processing methods. The interiority of his work and its complexity brought about a new shift in contemplating the pictorial space “sur le motif,” and for this reason, the iconic work “Vendors of Joy” with its chromatic circles signifies this transformation. There existed another place beyond, derived from the shift in perspective.
Gradually, his work shed the narrative and figurative aspects, adopting new plastic procedures by utilizing geometric elements, combining color and form, ultimately achieving a heightened visual intensity. Colors and geometry were already within his visual horizon, and now they intertwine, merging with one another to create vibrant, uninterrupted surfaces, becoming a dynamic locus of emanation. Themes from his artistic repertoire now appear as pictorial signs, allied with permutations of colors through compositions that seem to have a foundational matter: they are sets of abstract elements combined and systematically repeated, with endless chromatic variations on the same basic constructions.
In the abstract series titled “All Colors”, Toz developed expanding concentric circles that defy the square format of the canvas surface, featuring true multicolored spinning discs in simultaneous movement and complex chromatic contrasts. The infinite interplay of colors possesses a highly expressive poetry and language — a sort of colorful, rhythmic phrases that follow one another, resulting in movements of colored masses.
His artistic philosophy is grounded in color contrasts and the dissolution of form through light. The study of Michel-Eugène Chevreul’s color theory forms the basis of Toz’s luminous abstraction. His focus centers on the study of the color wheel and a passion for color, with its contrasts apprehended simultaneously through a single gaze, resulting in combinations with surprising visual effects.
The essential component of Toz’s painting lies in questions related to color, which gains autonomy as it breaks free from the commitment to representation. As a structural element, color is treated for its visual qualities, with its harmonies and dissonances, whether to organize the canvas surface or to infuse dynamism into the rhythm of construction and geometry, offering infinite possibilities for spatial arrangement.
The artist engages in even more intense dialogue with other artists, creating new axes of interpretation. Observing Volpi’s work is a continuous learning process and has emerged within his realm of contemplation and the cartography of his artistic universe. Toz revitalizes his language, evoking constant and consistent dialogues with Volpian visual language in the territory of abstraction, paving the way for more extreme forms of abstraction.
In this exhibition, Toz expands his inquiry, metabolizing his aesthetic experiences by adopting new compositional procedures for his artistic language: colors exceed their boundaries, seeking extremes and opposites, as if they have just been discovered. Geometry gains an adherence, and both become indicative axes in his new realm of work, converging color and form until achieving heightened visual intensity.
Toz leaves his marks on the world, offering us the opportunity to follow his aesthetic adventures that are currently in full bloom. He provokes a multitude of intricate questions that the art world has yet to decipher, and this exhibition reveals the unsettling nature of his works, which are always in a ceaseless creative process.
VANDA KLABIN
curator