The artist as an imposter
Felipe Scovino
Alvaro Seixas frankly approaches the problem: most of his canvases are indicative of a place, of a reference that lies between Suprematism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism. Also, since they are (basically) self-referent, these canvases place the spectator facing a meaning. Therefore, it is impossible, in front of one of Seixas’s canvases, not to experiment with this reflex: we try to find an analogy, as a legend for a work is incessantly sought after by visitors to a museum while contemplating a painting. However, we seek and, evidently, we find “errors,” “lack of adjustments” in relation to the original. Here is the original, or at least – here the production of Seixas begins -- what we find — that the canvas and the revelation of an incessant enigma — are ambiguous: between the false Malevitshes, Blinky Palermos that represent “nothing,” filled with a kind of vagueness. We are dislocated to a different logic: although it can take on the quality of “imposter,” the canvas has an end: what happens in it conforms to a definite finality. His work cannot be judged by the first look because it is not about imitation, nor about inspiration.Passing through this instance between the original and the copy, the work seeks an autonomy that ends up re the re-codifying the real one; that s, while it sets itself up as a false ghost, and, just after that, goes beyond that idea, we perceive an investigative method taking place, a careful preparation for the work, its oil layers and elaborate veils of paint. His canvas is not a reproduction or is not trying to make the spectator believe an incredible (and false) illusion of ease. His work coincides exactly with its appearance; that is, a series of works or image- filled dispensers that are clearly recognizable or recognized by the history of art. However, it is necessary to dare to affirm that they are common, banal works. However, on the other hand—and here is another quality--the appearance does not coincide with a language that is dislocated from its place, because it is made with watercolor paint. It is a work permeated with errors, imperfections and falsities that are discovered in a second look of appreciation, removed to a territory of autonomy in relation to the “matrix.” We start to analyze the work as any common painting—in the best sense that this expression can have--and, at this moment the relationship of approximation and dialog with the history of painting gains new turns and pathways.
This succession of “errors,” when put side by side, end up creating an abject condition to the works and to the territory of the gallery. The works stop dialoging among themselves—a special condition of curating—or then this dialog is done in the form of a contamination that is filled by a noise, by a kind of dirtiness. There is an atmosphere of disharmony and paradox being presented: work near the floor, or in distant corners, lesser works being “swallowed” by bigger ones, clashes between colors, shapes and scales just like the title of the exposition itself (Keep Dripping). This is more a moment of the supposed permanence that his work possesses and of its parting from the fragile idea of being named an imposter. Or better, this condition slowly transforms into a quality filled with cynicism and corrosive put down. His work becomes an infiltrating caustic agent, filled with questioning and a creative element of its own kind.