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Established in 2010 and consolidated in its present form in 2013, Underdogs works with a diversified roster of Portuguese and international artists connected with the urban inspired contemporary art universe, fostering the development of close relationships between creators, the public, and the city with the aim of promoting art as an everyday experience.
As Brazil enters a period of intense, and uncertain, political and social changes, Cássio Markowski presents here a timely proposal which, based on news items disseminated in the mass media, takes as focal point a look into the standardisation of physical and symbolic violence present in conflict areas in his home country.
The scenes contained in the set of pieces showcased here, in the form of silhouettes that have been cut out and painted with spray paint, try to generate through their different layers of meaning a poetic reflection on the contrast between the imagination of an exuberant nature and a tolerant society in tension with an increasingly violent reality.
As the artist himself explains regarding his process: The appropriation of images is the starting point for a discourse that is multidisciplinar, whose intention is to create a flow between that which is personal to me and that which is global, between the present and the past. Influenced from early on by literature, I usually work with images that are taken from books on botany, assorted handbooks, comic books, the internet, advertisements, newspapers, magazines, and family photos. By combining them, these images begin to exist in a new context, a territory imbued with a certain theatricality where an emotional and personal memory emerges as a common thread.
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 51 × 73 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 51 × 73 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
Paper silhouettes cut out, painted with spray paint, and fixed with entomological pins on paper and K-line; wood and glass frame 49 × 37 × 6.5 cm Unique piece 2019
