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O Abraço II

Leopoldino de Abreu - 2023

Mármore branco calacatta sobre imbuia

58,00 cm height x 33,00cm width x 25,00 cm depth

USD 3.430,00

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Product code: 14708

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THE ARTIST

Leopoldino de Abreu

“The universe offers us inexhaustible sources and inspiring themes, that go beyond our immediate, intrinsic questions. The way we communicate, our anxieties and the media that we choose, are personal, and thus, originality is fundamental.”

The pleasure of transforming a block of stone – from nature, a simple raw material – into a sculptural object is, says Leopoldino de Abreu, a little like redeeming its human essence. This is what motivates him: fascinated by the possibility of imprinting a way forward, an individual language, on a given piece of stone, by sculpting it, he sublimely massages out the shape, organically feeling his way to the final form each stone should have.

He starts with draft sketches springing from inspiration and feelings. Their combination results in the original design, which is then developed into a modelled mass, adding three-dimensionality and clarity to the future sculpture. Rarely he cuts directly into the stone – there is usually a predefined plan before he starts. “Who knows, one day I might achieve the degree of freedom and confidence of Picasso, who could say: “It took me a lifetime to paint like a child”.”

His preferred technique is cutting in stone – sculpture in marble, but he also uses bronze, plasticine and clay, with drawing and sometimes painting involved in the creative process: whatever gives him the best expression. He says a matrix of subjects inform his work, from questions of philosophy and existence, through art as a means of transformation, to the form of the human body and elements of nature.

Born in Curitiba in 1967, he says his desire to work with art started in infancy, when he drew and doodled in schoolbooks during lessons. He soon entered the Escola de Belas Artes of Paraná. Art has permeated his life in all its phases, with courses in painting, design of the human figure, casting in bronze, modelling, and sculpture in stone. In particular, the contact with stone that fascinated him as a form of expression. From early on he felt the need for a technique that would demand a greater investment of energy from him, something that painting did not provide, and this took him into three-dimensionality.

Fascinated by the possibility of imprinting a way forward, an individual language, on a given piece of stone, by sculpting it, he sublimely massages out the shape, organically feeling his way to the final form each stone should have.

He worked as assistant to a sculptor even before joining the Belas Artes, and frequented studios making sculpture and installations – since that time he felt the need for a place of his own to store his material, books, blocks and shelves of tools. He first improvised a small studio at the back of his parents’ house, with a few tools he needed and small blocks of Espírito Santo marble. Since a single cubic meter of marble weighs three tons, it was difficult to make larger and more complex projects in that confined space – impossible to store and move the blocks without a structure, space, and enough remoteness not to disturb the neighbors. He thus began to plan his own studio, which was completed with great efforts in 2007 – enabling him to finally immerse himself in his chosen medium. In these years of researching and making his works, he has been in contact with the work of many Brazilian and international artists. He includes among his sources of inspiration Victor Brecheret, an Italian living in Brazil considered to be of major importance because, together with other artists, he introduced modernism to the country; and also Henry Moore of England, whose predominantly figurative bronze and marble three-dimensional work made brief incursions into the abstract – and likewise contributed to the introduction of modernism in the UK.

Thirsty to learn and improve his technique, he attended courses all over Brazil, before deciding to do a course in the pointing technique commonly used in figurative work, which he completed in Massa Carrara, Italy. Also at this time, he began to work with marbles from Brazilian deposits – beautiful stones, but mostly harder than the usual Carrara marble. Seeking out the stones in quarries in Brazil and even in Italy, he became intrigued with the waste involved in commercial operations, which ‘condemned’ large blocks extracted from magnificent mountains – because they did not meet the standards for cutting into giant and uniform sheets. Reflecting his love for nature and his philosophy of life, he decided to make use of material that had previously been part of a monumental mountain, but discarded as unsuitable for a less noble purpose.

After this period in Italy, in Pietra Santa and Massa Carrara, where he completed his studies, he went on to France, Spain and Portugal. His efforts resulted in a series of showings in salons, and awards in group and individual shows. He was once a triathlete – he loves swimming, especially in the open sea, because, he says, the physical activity helps him bear the heavy and arduous work with stones, as well as reinvigorating him and preventing possible injuries to muscle or bone that this type of work can cause.

On his philosophy, he explains: “The universe offers us inexhaustible sources and inspiring themes, that go beyond our immediate, intrinsic questions. The way we communicate, our anxieties and the media that we choose, are personal, and thus, originality is fundamental. References and information are a constant, but one must form an identity of one’s own, because otherwise we run the risk of replicating other people’s original ideas, which is something quite common in art, and in my view, reprehensible.”

“Art,” he says, “is what differentiates us from other forms of life – with its power to make us think, and liberate our heads to some extent from life’s more futile issues. For me, this sums up the importance that art can have as an element for transformation, and for a more meaningful existence.”

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