{"id":2413,"date":"2025-02-28T15:52:24","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T18:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2025-10-08T18:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T21:13:07","slug":"7th-solo-exhibition-arnaldo-dias-baptista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/2025\/02\/28\/7th-solo-exhibition-arnaldo-dias-baptista\/","title":{"rendered":"7th Solo Exhibition by Arnaldo Dias Baptista"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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7th solo exhibition by Arnaldo Dias Baptista<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Gurum-Gudum \u2013 Between Fairies and Naughty Pillows<\/b><\/p>

by Roger Valen\u00e7a<\/i><\/p>

“I was walking along the path and met an owl” sings Arnaldo Dias Baptista\u00a0in the song \u201cGurum-Gudum\u201d, featured on his 2004 album \u201cLet It Bed\u201d.\u00a0<\/span>The song that now lends its title to the exhibition organised twenty years\u00a0<\/span>later by CaSa SLAMB, gives us a clue as to which path to follow in order to\u00a0<\/span>enter the particular universe of this Brazilian artist-legend: the animal is t<\/span>he psychopomp.<\/span><\/p>

The White Rabbit is Alice’s spiritual guide to Wonderland. Also it is the\u00a0<\/span>little dog Toto who, by running away, ends up leading Dorothy to the\u00a0<\/span>enchanted kingdom of Oz. Outside of the everyday world and immersed in\u00a0<\/span>fantasy, these characters go through the process of individuation, where\u00a0<\/span>the order of life is subverted in the name of the sensorial. In Arnaldo’s\u00a0<\/span>work, a rabbit, a green bird with an elongated beak or a wild boar, among\u00a0<\/span>other mysterious guides, embody the signs of this journey.<\/span><\/p>

In Arnaldo’s pictorial works, the fusion of realities transforms the ordinary\u00a0into something fantastic \u2013 the human body into a landscape, the\u00a0<\/span>landscape into a pillow, the animals into mythological beings and so on \u2013\u00a0<\/span>until science is transmuted into mysticism and, finally, back into science: \u201cI\u00a0<\/span>am a being\u201d, said Arnaldo in an interview, \u201cwho sometimes finds an open\u00a0<\/span>road in front of me, from which I try to extract the best that is before me\u201d.<\/span><\/p>

Through works made with acrylic paint and mixed media on cardboard or\u00a0canvas, Arnaldo conjures sculptural designs in effervescent tones: lemon\u00a0<\/span>yellow, hot pink, fluorescent orange and so on… With a pronounced\u00a0<\/span>physicality, in thick patches of paint that appear almost three-<\/span>dimensional, Arnaldo’s imagery is above all a matter of sensation.<\/span><\/p>

In \u201cGurum-Gudum\u201d, everything solid melts into thin air. Figures enclosed\u00a0by squares and right angles break out of their confinement through\u00a0<\/span>chromatic vibration. Everything seems to be on the edge between one\u00a0<\/span>reality and the next, in stages of representation that blend the figurative\u00a0<\/span>and the abstract, as if the human eye were capable of seeing invisible\u00a0<\/span>vibrations of light and, ultimately, deciphering\/unscrambling the\u00a0<\/span>mysterious forces that govern our reality from beneath the surface.<\/span><\/p>

“Today is the 36th”; sang Arnaldo Baptista in the sixties, suggesting an\u00a0extrapolation of the calendar, the frugality of everyday life as a barrier to\u00a0<\/span>be transcended. Now, at 76 years of age, with his very free and unique\u00a0<\/span>style, he moves between conventions, realities and desires in order to\u00a0<\/span>make visible \u2013 like a “Candle that Reveals”, title of one of his paintings \u2013\u00a0<\/span>the wonder he is able to see in the world.<\/span><\/p>

***<\/p>

Gurum-Gudum \u2013 Between Fairies and Naughty Pillows<\/b><\/p>

Until 24th March 2025<\/p>

CaSa SLAMB\u00a0 – SLAMB Gallery<\/p>

Mateus Grou Street, 106 – Pinheiros, S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>

Visiting hours:<\/p>

Wednesdays to Mondays, from 3 to 6pm. Closed on Tuesdays.<\/p>

Other times via WhatsApp appointment +55 11 95552 5573.<\/p>

Curators: Roger Valen\u00e7a and Lucas Velloso<\/p>

***<\/p>

Other references in English<\/p>

Chronology<\/b>:\u00a0https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/cronologia\/<\/a><\/p>

Interview for the launch of his 1st solo exhibition, Magnetic Lenses, 2012,\u00a0at Emma Thomas Gallery, S\u00e3o Paulo, with subtitles in English.<\/span><\/p>

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=shared&v=avdMKni5uQc<\/a><\/p>

Arnaldo signs the presentation for the edition of The Wizard of Oz, by\u00a0Antof\u00e1gica Publishing, for which he also created the illustrations:<\/span><\/p>

https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/2023\/11\/03\/illustrations-presentation-wizard-oz\/<\/a><\/p>

About the works, part of the VIX Capixaba Stories Catalog:<\/p>

https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/2021\/12\/16\/catalogo-de-vix-estorias-capixabas\/<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I was walking along the path and met an owl” sings Arnaldo Dias Baptista in the song \u201cGurum-Gudum\u201d, featured on his 2004 album \u201cLet It Bed\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2459,"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions\/2459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnaldodiasbaptista.com.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}