Brazilian contemporary artist Henrique Oliveira recently completed work on his largest installation called “Transaquitetonica” at Museu de Arte Contemporanea da Universidade in São Paulo. As with much of his earlier sculptural and installation work the enormous piece is built from tapumes, a kind of temporary siding made from inexpensive wood that is commonly used to obscure construction sites. Oliveira uses the repurposed wood pieces as a skin nailed to an organic framework that looks intentionally like a large root system. Because the space provided by the museum was so immense, the artist expanded the installation into a fully immersive environment where viewers are welcome to enter the artwork and explore the cavernous interior.
Using materials recycled from his home city’s urban fabric, Oliveira has configured a massive series of snaking wooden columns wrapping through the interior space, which can be entered and experienced by the visitor. The various routes with multiple possibilities are designed to embrace the observer in a sculptural universe, with the smells, sounds and sights of the medium surrounding them within the form. Shifting in narrative and aesthetic from front to end, the piece epic proportions begins as the knotted roots of a tree, and finishes as narrow, white-painted corridors, symbolically expressing the evolutionary transformation in architecture from the caves which served as shelter to men and women for millennia to the high-rise buildings in the sky we occupy today.
Holding a degree in painting, in addition to works on canvas, the artist explores three- dimensional constructions in the form of temporary installations and sculptures.
Oliveira was the winner of the third edition of the CNI SESI Marcantonio Vilaça Award (Brazil), in 2009. In 2014, he created installations at the Projective Eye Gallery – University of North Carolina (Charlotte, USA), at Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (France) and at MAC-USP Nova Sede (São Paulo, SP). In 2013, he participated in an artistic residence program in Paris (France), held a solo show at the Palais de Tokyo and participated in a group show at the Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt, Germany).
In 2012, he held solo exhibitions at Galeria Millan (São Paulo, Brazil), at Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and the Offenes Kulturhaus (Linz, Austria). In 2011, he displayed works in the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (Washington, USA) and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (Boulder, USA). He took part in the 29th Bienal de São Paulo, in 2010, with a sculpture of architectural dimensions in which interior was possible to walk. In 2009, he constructed a large three- dimensional painting at the Rice Gallery (Houston, USA) and participated in the Monterrey Biennial (Mexico) and the Mercosul Biennial (Porto Alegre, Brazil). His works are included in collections such as the Pinacoteca Municipal de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP (Brazil), and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (USA).
