Frações de Abstratos Instantes de Memórias em Andamento
Streetwear collection | 2023
''Construção'' by Chico Buarque
Fractions of Abstracts Instants of an On Going Memory
For my dad,
Fractions of Abstracts Instants of an On Going Memory it’s a streetwear collection that seeks to portray the encounter of Formula 1 memories with the art of Tomo Campbell. The pieces presents utilitarian elements, hand paintings, several trims and references to motosport. The fusion between the memories and paintings goes far beyond the colours used for the pieces being the ones more present on the artist works and prints of circuits. It’s the fact that the art of Campbell is known by offering multiple focal points and keep the eye in constant motion, action also present in car racing. It’s your tone not figurative neither abstract, it’s what it’s known and what it’s not, which is equally present at the moment you watch the sport live, being practically impossible to see the cars with precision. It’s an experience of colourful trails and sounds that lasts seconds.
Tomo Campbell (1988) was born and raised in London, gradueted in Fine Arts at Central St Martins (2010). His first series of ballet dancers paintings guaranteed him a residency at the English National Ballet's, in 2012-2013. Since then, Campbell offers the experience of multiple focal points, keeping the eye of those who are looking at it in constant motion, with non-figurative or abstract works that appear to have no beginning or end, portraying what is known and what is not, characterised by large and extensive canvases, made of oil paint and some printing techniques. It's a fluid and expressive painting, with limpid and vivid compositions with excessive repetition. According to the ''Émergent Magazine'', he affirms that the colours he uses are ''colours and colour combinations that aren’t seen together in real life very often, I stay away from ‘realistic’ colour palettes.'' The artist brings inspirations and elements from greek gods, medieval tapestries, old prints, athenian vases, animals, paintings from the Renaissance and Victorian period. For Tomo, if art was an album: ''it would be made up of the same song played 10 different ways'', your titles are poetics and ironic and when he creates an exhibition, he likes the idea of his works having continuity with one another.
Tom. Twenty four years old. Plastic artist. And only takes analog photos. Of absolutely anyone, item or landscape; capable to catch your eye. Son of an Italian dad and Brazilian mum, he grew up listening to Bossa nova and going to Jazz clubs, a practice he still cultivates with them today. Although he was born in Brazil, he lived in several countries throughout his life, due to his father's work as a mechanical engineer for a Formula 1 team. He has always kept in touch with the world of motorsport and to this day, he spends his holidays traveling with his father. He lives in a loft in Pinheiros, even though he would prefer it to be a Mid-century Modern style house. He doesn't label himself with regard to his sexuality and doesn't believe that clothes are gendered. He's almost always wearing something from Casablanca, Piet, Golf Le Fleur, Diesel, Bode, Pikol or Rhude. He has impressionism as his favorite vanguard despite Wes Anderson being his favorite director. Or maybe it's Luca Guadagnino, it depends on the day. He goes to all editions of Sp-Arte and on Sundays, to Cinesala. Hates indecisive people, velvet clothes and airbrushing but loves ceramic tableware, Architectural Digest videos and the scent of jasmine. He considers Jaden Smith and Tyler, the Creator his favorite singers nowadays. No matter where he goes, he always carries “Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast” with him, because Oscar Wilde is by far the best writer he's ever read. He never responds on Whatsapp and only sleeps with two pillows. Even always being surrounded by people, he values a lot of time alone. Tamarilho juice during the day and Fitzgerald when he's out with friends.
Twill Jeans Twill Twill
From a happy, old and naive starting point, I am now faced with self-questioning, immediacy and cycles that seem endless. Never because of the memories. But because of the realization of what was behind unconscious choices. An abstract art painter, a sport that is practically only for you to listen to, sketches with confused faces. It is a collection that represents not only sweet memories between father and daughter. It is also the portrait of a restless self. We are inserted in a society based on living for the future, full of vicious cycles, with no beginning or end, where the present will always have faults, until you realize that everything are colourful trails and sounds that lasts seconds. Why always in such a hurry? Why a life built around material possessions? Why does what's to come always seem more interesting? Why all this immediacy? We are being built from abstract instants of a memory that is wasted. However, the end came. Learning to live in the present and letting go of everything that is involuntarily imposed on you is finally being able to break all those cycles that seemed endless. It's enjoying each fragment completely, as if nothing else mattered. It's like waking up with the smell of bread and sausage in the farm's room and running downstairs to have breakfast watching Formula 1 and suddenly, being 8 years old again.
