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Arts
Q&A with Artur Silva
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Visual Arts Review | Thru June 8

Artur Silva thinks deeply about what he does. A native of Brazil, the young artist moved with his girlfriend to Indianapolis via New York City shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, and has made his home here ever since.

Work by Artur Silva is on view at the Harrison Gallery.

I met the artist in the Harrison Gallery, where we viewed his exhibition, Proposition, and talked about the meaning and inclinations behind his art. But Silva’s concerns range further than stylistic experimentation; he brings a worldview to his art that expands and contracts with the making of each new piece. In the clipped English of one who grew up speaking another language, Silva explains, gesturing to his painting “Elvis, Soccer and Elephant,” “I think about Elvis and it fascinates me that so many years after his death people still worship him.” He playfully adds, “It would be great to have a soccer game where elephants are walking around.” Strewn about his tightly composed canvases are stenciled words and images and occasionally figures or objects; these are often painted to mimic stenciling, but in reality are often a trick of Silva’s brush. In his series of Pele paintings, he describes, “The idea was to create a stencil feeling but not to actually do it.” Soccer, of course, is a cultural institution in South America, much like baseball in this country. America, though, is perhaps unique in its institutionalization of advertising as a means of influence. It is equal in power to the journalistic media — some might argue more so. Silva’s art recognizes this, without necessarily judging it. “Many of these pieces have to do with the crowded advertising industry right now,” he offers. “We’re just bombed by so many different ideas.” Influenced by Jean Michel Basquiat, the African-American, graffiti-style artist who died young in the late ’80s, Silva has the same wiry complexity. And yet this can be deceptive; as Silva himself explains, “I think what I’m just going for is simplicity.” His paintings, though, are visually complex; and yet there’s an undercurrent that draws them together as like minds connected by a long train of thought. Silva, in fact, began making art early in the form of graffiti, which has obvious social-justice overtones. Employing a drip-painting style as a backdrop to each composition, Silva creates with a Basquiat-like spontaneity that is overlaid with tightly sculpted quasi-narratives. While Silva is aesthetically eloquent about human rights abuses without proselytizing, he is also light-hearted. His “Ferris Wheel” painting speaks to his own youthful joy in taking a ride, but the pull of it also suggests, once again, the insidious power of advertising. “It makes you feel bad if you can’t have it,” he remarks. In the sculptural piece “1976,” a series of wood blocks are glued together to create a flat surface that Silva paints as a canvas. A space shuttle is the predominant image. His use of these materials is suggestive of “my willingness not to waste anything.” And in the process, he creates something anew. He uses the same technique in “Untitled,” in which he explores another historical perspective of the first airplane flight, in which a Brazilian, not the Wright brothers, were the first to launch an airplane into the sky. Silva describes his work as “collages of thoughts.” Indeed, there is a layered effect, both materially and in terms of the exchange of ideas. Silva is open to the world around him, but at the same time, he is right to recognize that political and social issues, as well as aesthetics, are indelibly woven into the fabric of our lives. “This body of work is part of my thoughts in the quest for truthfulness and authenticity.” Proposition, paintings by Artur Silva, are on view through June 8 at the Harrison Gallery, 1505 N. Delaware St., 514-6787.

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