Eduardo Berliner: The Shape of the Remains: Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil
For Eduardo Berliner, the quality of the surface of wood has warranted its use as a support in recent years. According to the artist, because it is smoother than canvas, it decreases the friction of the brushstroke, allowing for faster and more fluid lines and the creation of a hybrid space between drawing and painting. It is important to note that some of these works received additional sheets of plywood during the process, thus emphasizing their speculative aspect.
Berliner works in an essentially introspective way: “Generally, the imagetic repertoire derives from the accumulation of records made on a daily basis over the course of years in my notebooks reconfigured by contact with the process of painting. They are notations of a distinct nature that fluctuate between the observation of my surroundings, information absorbed in a conscious and unconscious way, and a mapping of intimate questions with a strong psychological charge.” During the process of painting, in contact with the physicality of the materials, different questions of nature and temporality tend to coalesce, giving rise to images or situations that do not necessarily refer to a specific event, but rather to broad metaphors about the human condition.
An example of the temporality in Berliner’s work is found in the work A estranha permanência na memória das coisas vistas no escuro [The Strange Permanence in the Memory of Things Seen in the Dark], 2017. Consisting of 50 small drawings and texts in India ink and watercolor, the work is imbued by an intimist atmosphere where observations and distortions of memory live side-by-side, generating an oscillating narrative that delicately unites elements only to quickly tear them apart, with a simple movement of the eyes.
