“With his new diptychs, collage-drawings, wood pieces, and ‘spatial paintings,’ Chico Fortunato expands his vocabulary, demonstrating his customary freedom and predilection for certain elements and colors. He does not clamor for the banal spectacle; he seeks essence,” defines Luiz Chrysostomo de Oliveira Filho, who curates the artist’s solo exhibition, “Construtos.” Featuring previously unseen works produced between 2021 and 2024, the exhibition will be on view at Galeria Patricia Costa starting July 25. As a painter and furniture designer, he reveals through his precise yet delicate lines a preference for geometric figures, dominating the space with lines that articulate colors with a peculiar lightness. Among the most recent works, the collage-drawings stand out—a medium never before explored by Chico Fortunato in his long artistic career.
“The diptychs began in 2018. Shortly after an exhibition in 2017 and between several trips, the pandemic hit with full force, a period during which I produced the wood pieces. In 2021, I completed a series of works that recalled previous paintings but introduced new elements. Then, in 2023, I began working on the collage-drawings. I created a series of them, which are being shown for the first time now in this solo exhibition. They start from drawing, and the lines follow the same rules as painting. They are often political and show the contradictions so present in our daily lives. This year, I returned to painting, which I love so much, appearing with more colors, although starting from the same principle,” he says.
