Imagem, titatium oxide and iron oxide on bronze

Vanderlei Lopes is a sculptor who uses novel combinations of media and unexpected colour palettes to create sculptural artworks in which everything is not as it seems. The artist uses a wide range of media, often combining wildly different materials in a way that emphasizes and subverts common expectations for certain types of media and art. 

Posse (sapatos), shoe polish over bronze and polished bronze

Some of the artist’s recent sculptures have taken the form of flows of liquid emerging from holes in the gallery wall. Already, these sculptures produce the tactile effect of a material state that is quite different from the media actually being used. There’s a sense of the uncanny valley in many of Lopes’ works, and the viewer is forced to reassess each image to determine if initial notions are, in fact, correct. 

Lopes’ sculptures are akin to a kind of magical realism, where the goal often seems to be that of emulating a certain material or producing a realistic effect, only by using materials that are outside of what might be expected for a given task.

Disputa, polished bronze