Ra, Set Sebek, 2020
Clay, latex, fragments, glass
20x30x200mm
25x55x120mm
40x40x100mm
ENG This piece is a tryptich of sculptures assembled from fragments, clay an latex. Their origin is mysterious and seem anachronic. The contrasting juxtaposition of the dark latex skin wrapping an ambiguous artifact, that seem to have come simultaneously from an ancient and from a future civilization.
This anachronism has it’s origin in João’s imaginary, and they are sourced from his first collection has a young child of collectible egyptian copies. Greatly admired and used throughout the years, they slowly lost their value and fell into oblivion. With is these copies became broken, fragmented and negleted.
Many years later, in a sort of childhood archaeological mission these fragments were rediscovered, amongst with other toys, drawings, books and texts. For João there was this feeling of being in swetiness of the desert, digging these artifacts from the tomb or the remains of an egyptian buried in his conscience.
Simultaneously, he couldn’t forget his grandfather and their shared obsession for archeology, himself an amateur archeologist, and that would ‘sponsor’ his collections of these collectible artifacts.
João took on the project to reconstruct these artifacts. No longer interested in their original shape but the decaying memory that he preserves of this time, in which he so carefully admired these totems. He sets to reconstruct this decaying, lost and fragmented memory and to let his imagination lead this transformation.
With this gesture the small statuettes reclaim their authenticity, abandoning the satus of a copy and becoming an artifact of João’s imagination, reconcilling his childhood fascination with his current pratice.