Vaso Armorial

Glazed ceramic and epoxy adhesive
49 x 24 x 24 cm

Vaso Armorial illustrates Rodrigo Torres’ mastery of ceramics and trompe l’oeil. Using an aesthetic of collage common to his practice, the artist seems to assemble multiple fragments of material, distorting our perception and making us perceive glazed clay as cardboard. Our eyes think we recognise its grooves and texture, and project a certain lightness onto the work, before realising the artifice. The title of this work refers to the Armorial Movement, a cultural and artistic movement born in 1970 in the Nordeste region of Brazil. The aesthetics of some of the enamelled figures chosen by Rodrigo Torres, with their strong lines and black and white colours, are reminiscent of the xylographs (engravings) on wood in the style emblematic of this movement, borrowed from cordel literature (popular Brazilian literature in verse derived from oral tradition, printed on sheets). The viewer will notice that the motifs chosen by the artist evoke dance and music: a ballerina can be seen from behind, a couple appearing to twirl, a kind of faun, a woman with an umbrella… This echoes the pictogram of an umbrella drawn by Torres on the surface of the work: a common symbol in the world of transport, conventionally affixed to packaging to indicate that its contents are sensitive to water and humidity, which is indeed the case… with cardboard!