Com certeza. Aqui está a tradução do terceiro texto.

Lucas Albuquerque: In “Ar em pedaços” [Air in pieces], the image of a supposedly human lower limb has its femur partially exposed and connected to a fleshless bone, which in turn is connected to another bone structure resembling an animal skull. This then connects to an articulated mechanical structure which, finally, connects to the foot of the same lower limb. More discerning eyes will find references to iconographies present in Western oil painting, such as “vanitas,” for example, and will be reminded of the still life genre. In what way do you seek to use art history when dealing with contemporary complexity?

Eduardo Berliner: When I feel moved by a work, no matter the era in which it was made, it begins to exist within me, in the present, like the words of a loved one who is no longer with us.

I don’t have a specific interest in the historical genre of still life. My eye needs a focal point prior to the narrative. I like to be able to just be in front of something. To give form to a state of mind. However, an interesting problem comes to light in this type of painting, when an atmosphere emerges from colors, luminosity, the relationship between the paint, the support, and the brushstroke. These are things that do not have a clear address in memory. In the end, we are looking at the representation of something in the world, but our thoughts turn inward and bring from there something we could not anticipate. It’s similar to the faint memory of a dream that disappears as soon as we open our eyes.

LA: On your Instagram account, there’s a post about the work’s creation process where we can observe some drawings and an installation with everyday objects (a table, a plant pot, dry branches, a doll’s leg), as well as bones that appear to be real. The intensive use of sketchbooks, of different scales and configurations, is, above all, a constant in your production. How did the creation process of “Ar em pedaços” happen and in what way do materials like drawings and installations relate to the execution of the painting?

EB: For a long time, I have accumulated hundreds of photographs and objects in the studio, which get ruined or buried, but which also, gradually, rearrange themselves by chance. Sometimes, at the beginning of the day, I don’t have a clear plan of what I’m going to do, but I draw frequently, and in some cases, something in a drawing serves as a starting point for a painting. Then I dig out the paint that hasn’t completely dried on a palette, I grab something from the huge piles of photographs and look at the images searching for something that attracts me even before I understand why. Other times, I manipulate newly arrived objects or ones that already inhabited the studio. Insects, tools, bottles, a fish… it doesn’t make much difference. For me, the important thing is that something prevents my intention from being realized in a linear way. I need something I cannot anticipate. Something that takes shape as objects, images, and fragments come into contact, guided by hands, eyes, and chance. Usually, chance is what comes closest to what I wanted to say but didn’t know how.

I started the painting “Ar em pedaços” trying to lift a doll’s leg that had no body. I placed a scaled-down model of a human bone inside it and, to balance the set, I used a metal clamp, similar to a mechanical arm (a tool called a “third hand”). I looked and found the precarious balance of the structure interesting. After one or two drawings, I liked the way the form cut through the space of the paper and thought it could work as a starting point for a painting from observation. But I chose a 250 x 180 cm canvas and thus ended up inserting my own body into the work, visible in the scale of the brushstrokes and in other marks of the paint’s use.

The arrangement suffered accidents throughout the painting process, as some parts fell, but other changes were intentional, like when I rotated the stool’s seat in search of another point of view for a certain object. The rotation created a kind of anachronistic movement, considering that until then one of the painting’s axes was an inert leg and the composition had something static about it.

The last object to enter the frame was the glass vase with a dry plant. I thought the space was a bit flattened, but I didn’t want to insert another element. The vase ultimately created an ambiguous space, because, given its transparency, the glass creates a ghostly presence.

LA: Your work typically flirts with the strange, the surreal, the inexplicable, although we can find in it references to banal motifs that you claim are material for the work’s composition: everyday scenes, objects found on the streets, photographs, videos, etc. In “Ar em pedaços” all these elements seem to have their place, composing an image sustained by a kind of circularity (or cycle) charged with dualities, such as life/death, natural/artificial, man/machine, man/animal. The duality that composes the canvas seems to find its structure also in the work’s title, in which the immateriality of air confronts the solidity of the piece, the fragment. How did this title come about and what is the importance of these dualities in the work?

EB: Normally, with the intention of keeping the focus on the painting, I try to give descriptive titles that don’t interfere with the work. However, in some cases, I might continue the work’s reasoning in the title itself. “Ar em pedaços” is neither one thing nor the other; it is a title that describes the work through its inversion. The glass is the only apparently whole thing in the frame, but the words anticipate the fragmentation of what the images show. A kind of imminent risk, or of silent pain.

LA: In 2020, the year the work was produced, we were hit by a pandemic that altered our relationships with others, with time, and with space. What has it been like to be and work in the studio, a place so dear to you, during this period?

EB: I had the privilege of being able to continue working at home for the first hundred days of the pandemic. So as not to bother my family with the smell of paint, I worked only with drawings and watercolors. By drawing, I don’t go crazy, as I convert what is formless and nebulous in my head into something visible and liable to be evaluated. But in those months dominated by the need for cleanliness, I started to miss the chaotic environment of the studio, where the space itself creates problems and improbable relationships that help me think and fertilize my painting. As I work alone, I was able to gradually return to my natural workspace, which was a breath of fresh air, because when I work in larger formats I also think through my body. Furthermore, my work process makes use of the difference between media and sudden changes in materials and scale that create a healthy contamination between elements and give me the necessary distance to reflect on works in progress. I also miss having breakfast at the bakery and talking for hours on end with a friend, sharing silence and bread. Passing time without a care and letting mundane events direct the dialogue. To be able to look together.

LA: Can you talk a little about the place of still life within your production, using this work as a starting point?

EB: When I paint small still lifes from observation, I notice that, in the process of creating a visual equivalence between the world in which I am inserted and a two-dimensional surface, the brushstroke and the luminosity of the paint gain vigor and intensity, and the painting itself acquires a synesthetic character that interests me. “Ar em pedaços” is an attempt to transpose this same attitude to a large-format painting.

[Interview produced in the context of the Futuração exhibition, between March and April 2021]