Felipe Barbosa
his firecracker works are a little puzzling when initially looking at them. barbosa paints firecracker snaps and glues them onto a plush toy. the photographs make the work appear flat, but maybe that's also some kind of optical illusion if you're a certain distance from the work set against a flat black background (which i think is actually a pretty cool presentation for sculpture). the constructive processes play with the viewer in multiple ways. its construction is visually playful because of the actual explosive charge packed into his party popper material. his fuzzy and cuddly Tweety and Sapo (Toad) are ironically constructed from materials that will deconstruct with too much tactile playing. the subject, cartoon dolls for kids, inhabits more twisted and dynamic sensibilities than its innocent demeanor suggests
the colorful curling sparkers of Ursa Maior (Bear) are visually ecstatic. individual colors and placement give a unique hand to the manufacturing process of plush dolls, especially ones whose images are iconic. its detailed placement and assorted variety calls the viewer's attention to the handmade assembly process
his other work like Cubic Idea draws upon ideas of Constructivism in form and ideology. construction plays with permutation and pattern while aspiring to psuedo-ideal geometries. his work alone seems to conduct experiments in optical effects like in Three-Dimensional Opp Ball, the Op Art "somewhere in between understanding and seeing" (Lancester)
Kathedrale I (2007) Andreas Gursky - Cokes (2006), Pill Ball (2006)
[via Sara Meltzer Gallery]
