Bruno Pacheco

The subject matter of Bruno Pacheco’s paintings range from prosaic objects such as plants and hats, to compositions of ambiguous scenarios involving multiple figures. Pacheco frequently derives motifs from found images, but his practice is concerned with diverting attention away from their iconic content. He describes his approach to painting as a ‘neutralisation’ of the immediate graphic nature of the subject matter, a reductive act that is achieved by bringing form and ground together, and disrupting the conventional hierarchy of elements that constitute a picture. In representing objects and scenes through painting, Pacheco introduces greater indeterminacy in how such features are read to engage the viewer in the act of looking.

Marvel, 2019-2020, depicts art handlers moving a painting, The Dream of St Mark, c. 1570, by Domenico Tintoretto, in which an angel is shown in dramatic movement, hovering above St Mark in slumber. Two other paintings are also present in the scene, Jacopo Tintoretto’s St Mark Saving a Saracen, 1562–1566, and Translation of the Body of St Mark, 1562–1566, both of which depict one body moving another. Pacheco’s painterly treatment of the bodies and spaces, however, directs focus away from the precise details of the event toward the gestures and movements evoked by the scene.

In Boletus, 2018-2020, numerous mushroom-like forms are depicted clustered together and isolated in an anonymous space. This presentation evokes a group portrait, both for the gregarious cluster formation of the vegetal forms and the artificiality of the vibrant ground.

Cameo, 2017-2020, depicts either one or two neoprene wetsuits that have been laid one on top of another. The suits are flat and uninhabited, yet their shape and the visible brush marks in which they are rendered lend them a curiously animated quality. While seemingly an abstract element, the yellow triangle on the upper left corner echoes the yellow of the suit, and evokes more broadly the graphic designs and vibrant colours of sportswear aesthetic.