The series Lugares Congruentes uses drawing as a tool for creating ‘croquis de halls’, sketches of the entrance halls of palaces, mansions and museums. These works are absolutely symmetrical, and the drawings are examples of the search for the sublime in architecture – an attempt at reaching perfection so authentic that it becomes ethereal and almost immaterial. However, at the centre of each of these halls, there is a cloth covering what appears to be an organic object: a human body; simultaneously reinforcing and destabilizing the symmetry. Like corpses waiting to be removed, the bodies represent urban violence, and in turn human imperfection. The word ‘congruência’ is linked to geometric design, indicating that two figures have the same shape and size. Here, in addition to referring to mathematical design at its origin, it also takes on the meaning of two social spaces that are ideologically opposed, overlapping and coexisting in the same place.

Henrique de França was born in 1982, and lives and works in São Paolo, Brazil. With an undergraduate degree in Plastic Arts and a Postgraduate in Graphic Design, he has had solo shows at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Campo Grande/MS (2013), the Museu de Arte de Goiânia/GO (2012) and at Desenho Contado at the Galeria Leme, São Paulo (2011). In terms of group exhibitions, he participated in Desenho Ocupado, also at Galeria Leme (2009), About Change as part of the World Bank Art Program in Washington DC, USA (2010), Galeria Pilar (2013) and the 63rdand 64th Salão de Abril in Fortaleza/CE (in 2012 and 2013 respectively). He was prize-winner at the 11th Salão de Arte de Mato Grosso do Sul (2011) and at the 38th Salão de Arte Contemporânea Luis Sacilloto, in Santo André/SP (2010). His paintings and drawings address questions of collective and individual memory and urban violence.

For more information go to: www.henriquedefranca.com