Edgard

Barbosa

Edgard Barbosa manipulates photographs taken from assorted magazines, employing an origami-like technique that produces crisp, diagonal lines across the image. These miniature, folded shapes are then digitized, magnified, and strategically placed onto a substrate. As the tiny folded paper is flattened and enlarged, it morphs into something entirely new — at this magnified scale, one can see the printed dots in the photograph, which are otherwise invisible. The texture from the creased paper evolves into a stunning aesthetic component of the artwork, generating triangles throughout the piece. These works hold a commanding presence within the collage genre, crossing the boundaries into the worlds of appropriation and photomontage.

"To me, collage is a realm where I get to reconstruct the world according to my own understanding of it. It serves as a dialogue, bridging the gap between actual reality and the transformative power of reshaping it. As an artist, I believe in working with a piece rather than merely on it, allowing process to guide and shape the output. Collage, with its ever-evolving nature, provides an immense space of constant transformation, inviting me to adapt and evolve alongside it."

"I don't really have a specific theme, but what really grabs my interest is digging into the core emotion of a piece. There's something about simplified shapes and colors that carries a certain melancholy of quietude. It's interesting how the process and the end result always manage to surprise me, revealing unexpected things along the way."

"Absolutely! I always work at night with chamber choir music in the background. I find the juxtaposition between working with pop art imagery and sacred music an interesting place in art to explore."

"As an artist, I endeavor to distill the essence of advertising imagery, stripping it down to simpler and repetitive forms. In this process, I also aim to transform its primary commercial intent into something emotionally evocative. Through the medium of collage, I explore a unique approach by replacing traditional cutting with the act of folding. This deliberate choice turns my artistic practice into a primarily subtractive endeavor, where each fold reveals new layers and narratives. My creative journey is deeply rooted in the era of analog-to-digital transition, which significantly influenced my artistic sensibilities. Drawing inspiration from printed magazines and posters, I embark on a transformative process that involves scanning, digital manipulation, and finally, the realization of my vision in its printed form. Ultimately, my work serves as a visual reflection of the dynamic moments of my upbringing and the continuous evolution of our technological landscape. It is an exploration of the interplay between nostalgia and progress, inviting viewers to engage with the familiar and the unknown, as I seek to reshape the visual language of advertising into a new artistic narrative."

Edgard Barbosa was born in 1988 in Petrópolis, Brazil. He currently lives and works in New York City, New York.