Substance 2 2015

Curator: Standing before us is "Substance 2" by Rodrigo Franzao, completed in 2015. The piece utilizes mixed media, including acrylic paint, in an abstract expressionist style, really inviting us into a realm of pure form and abstraction. Editor: It explodes, doesn't it? The shapes seem contained in some moments but utterly let loose in others. My first impression is organized chaos, which is kind of my favorite flavor of ice cream, if art can be ice cream. Curator: I'm drawn to the layering—not just of paint, but almost like shards of something broken and reassembled. I sense a conversation between the raw energy of graffiti art, which is quite present, and a more formal exploration of line and shape. There’s a history of visual language happening here. Editor: I dig the tension between the grid of those...are they little canvases? And the wild abandon of the colors. The eye just zings all over the place. It's almost uncomfortable, like visual white noise in the best possible way. And those looping black shapes–they feel so primal. Curator: Those dark shapes resonate, perhaps unconsciously, with ancient symbols – the Ouroboros, perhaps? Cycles of destruction and creation reflected in those fragmented pieces. Maybe this resonates with cyclical destruction from 2015 when the painting was finished? I keep wondering about the “Substance” referred to in the title: What substance are we actually confronting here? Editor: Right? "Substance"… It makes me think about identity, how we piece ourselves together from fragments of experience. It definitely evokes something deeper, maybe some buried…thing that bubbles up to the surface despite all attempts at order. It's raw, almost painfully honest. Curator: Exactly. There is that raw element so tied to Abstract Expressionism, a feeling of honesty within artistic expression. Editor: Looking at "Substance 2" has reminded me that true art isn’t about pretty pictures. It's about poking at the stuff beneath the surface. Curator: For me it evokes the power of fragmented forms to conjure the continuous processes that are so meaningful, personally and collectively.