Antonio Tarsis

Antonio Tarsis adopts the reprocessing of quotidian objects as a compositional and critical tactic. Matchboxes, fruit crates and fragments of charcoal are examples of elements whose fragility and disposable character Tarsis exploits as visible registers of time’s effects. After safeguarding and accumulating these transitional objects, their variably faded tones, the tissue paper glued over partially covered surfaces and broken pieces of coal compose the texture of his assemblages, that receive graphic interventions in the form of drawings or collage. His materials carry a combustible or flammable potential, and Tarsis frequently uses burnt gunpowder as part of his visual lexicon. In superimposing abstract compositions to the intrinsic meaning of the matter he employs, the artist insists upon the volatility of plastic processes, giving way to a metaphor for the instability of individual or collective memory before social degradation and physical transformation.

Among his solo exhibitions are Spring clouds fire, Page (NYC), New York, USA;recipe for disaster, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brasil (2023); The End Begins at the Leaf — Anderson Borba & Antonio Tarsis, BeAdvisors Art, London, UK (2021) Symbolic Genocide, Carlos/Ishikawa, London, UK (2021); and Colored Export, SET studios, Dalston Lane, London, UK (2019). The artist participated in the group shows Nunca só essa mente, nunca só esse mundo, Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2023); Dos Brasis, SESC Belenzinho, São Paulo, Brazil (2023) Flavio de Carvalho Experimental, SESC Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil (2022); The Vibration of Things, The Fellbach Triennial, Fellbach, Germany (2022); 13ª Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2022); Carolina Maria de Jesus, Um Brasil para os brasileiros, IMS – Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo, Brazil (2021); Engraved into the body, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, USA (2021); Footnotes and headlines, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, USA (2021); Antifascismo Tropical, Queen Adelaide, London, UK (2019); Ecos do Atlântico Sul, Pivô, São Paulo, Brazil (2019) and Afrofuturismo, Caixa Preta, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2018).