For a long time, the portrait has ceased to be merely the gesture of fixing features. In the field
of contemporary art, it reinvents itself as an expanded territory, where identity projects itself
onto objects, symbols, and atmospheres that reveal more of the subject than their own face.
It is within this expanded space that the practices of Adriano Fagundes and Daniel Mattar
converge, in a dialogue that takes shape in this exhibition.
Adriano Fagundes shifts the portrait into the realm of music. For him, it is record collections, the
cassette tape, guitar picks, and instruments that give substance to subjectivity. Each musical
object chosen by those portrayed becomes the synthesis of a life, a coded autobiography.
Here lies an affective archaeology: vinyl worn by time, a guitar pick inscribed with the name of
a band, a cassette tape with a handwritten note—all these elements condense memories and
become portraits of simultaneous absence and presence. Among these works, the artist also
presents his own record collection as a self-portrait, reaffirming that the repertoire we carry
with us is also self-representation, a sonic mirror of who we are. Photographer and musician,
Fagundes constructs images that are less representations than symbols of a life woven through
music.
Daniel Mattar, who for years has investigated the passages between photography, painting,
and sculpture, presents in this exhibition a series of paintings that push the portrait into the
field of visual culture. Books, painted frontally and almost like still lifes raised into verticality,
become both self-portraits and portraits: what one reads speaks as much as what one sees.
Each painted spine carries elective affinities, genealogies, and formative histories. Alongside
these self-portraits through books, Mattar also presents paintings derived from photographs he
himself has taken, such as the portrait of Adriano, in which he inscribes exchange and friendship
into his own painting. His dense matter, still wet, captures light and creates volumes that
oscillate between presence and dissolution, reaffirming Mattar’s ongoing exploration of a
painting that does not close upon the canvas but unfolds as process.
The encounter between the two artists was born of this essential affinity: both sought, through
distinct processes, to rethink the portrait beyond the face. In recognizing one another, they
transformed synergy into collaboration. Conversations, meetings, and shared experimentations
shaped this body of works which, while maintaining the singularity of each practice, resonates
within a shared horizon.
Portraits
Adriano Fagundes and Daniel Mattar
For a long time, the portrait has ceased to be merely the gesture of fixing features. In the field
of contemporary art, it reinvents itself as an expanded territory, where identity projects itself
onto objects, symbols, and atmospheres that reveal more of the subject than their own face.
It is within this expanded space that the practices of Adriano Fagundes and Daniel Mattar
converge, in a dialogue that takes shape in this exhibition.
Adriano Fagundes shifts the portrait into the realm of music. For him, it is record collections, the
cassette tape, guitar picks, and instruments that give substance to subjectivity. Each musical
object chosen by those portrayed becomes the synthesis of a life, a coded autobiography.
Here lies an affective archaeology: vinyl worn by time, a guitar pick inscribed with the name of
a band, a cassette tape with a handwritten note—all these elements condense memories and
become portraits of simultaneous absence and presence. Among these works, the artist also
presents his own record collection as a self-portrait, reaffirming that the repertoire we carry
with us is also self-representation, a sonic mirror of who we are. Photographer and musician,
Fagundes constructs images that are less representations than symbols of a life woven through
music.
Daniel Mattar, who for years has investigated the passages between photography, painting,
and sculpture, presents in this exhibition a series of paintings that push the portrait into the
field of visual culture. Books, painted frontally and almost like still lifes raised into verticality,
become both self-portraits and portraits: what one reads speaks as much as what one sees.
Each painted spine carries elective affinities, genealogies, and formative histories. Alongside
these self-portraits through books, Mattar also presents paintings derived from photographs he
himself has taken, such as the portrait of Adriano, in which he inscribes exchange and friendship
into his own painting. His dense matter, still wet, captures light and creates volumes that
oscillate between presence and dissolution, reaffirming Mattar’s ongoing exploration of a
painting that does not close upon the canvas but unfolds as process.
The encounter between the two artists was born of this essential affinity: both sought, through
distinct processes, to rethink the portrait beyond the face. In recognizing one another, they
transformed synergy into collaboration. Conversations, meetings, and shared experimentations
shaped this body of works which, while maintaining the singularity of each practice, resonates
within a shared horizon.
What we see here, therefore, are not portraits in the conventional sense, but portraits in
expansion. Between pigment and vinyl, between oil and cassette, between the hand that
paints and the one that plays, Mattar and Fagundes invite us to revisit the portrait as a space of
encounter: with the other, with oneself, and with time. All the works in the exhibition unfold into
a musical portrait accessible via QR code, playlists created collaboratively by the artists and
the portrayed, extending the visual gesture into an experience of listening.
(Brisa Galeria, 2025)
What we see here, therefore, are not portraits in the conventional sense, but portraits in
expansion. Between pigment and vinyl, between oil and cassette, between the hand that
paints and the one that plays, Mattar and Fagundes invite us to revisit the portrait as a space of
encounter: with the other, with oneself, and with time. All the works in the exhibition unfold into
a musical portrait accessible via QR code, playlists created collaboratively by the artists and
the portrayed, extending the visual gesture into an experience of listening.
(Brisa Galeria, 2025)
