APRIL 27, 2022. KATE MOTHES

“Desnatureza” (2011). All images courtesy of the artist

Erupting from floors, doorways, and furniture, artist Henrique Oliveira’s artworks (previously) are a remarkable comment on the relationship between the built environment and the power of nature. In installations that explore the relationship between reality and otherworldly spectacle, enormous wooden limbs and vine-like forms emerge from walls and ceilings that have been cracked, broken, and twisted around the emerging growth, unable to contain it.

“Chest of Drawers” (2013)

Oliveira uses various readymade and organic materials such as bricks, wood, PVC, tree branches, mud, and other found items. He has incorporated tapumes, a Portuguese term for “enclosure” or “boarding,” which is typical of the plywood fencing installed around his home city of São Paulo that becomes weathered and varied in color and texture.

Pieces range in size from a few feet, such as furniture works like “Chest of Drawers,” to immense installations that sprawl across expansive exhibition spaces.[…]

Foreground: “Desnatureza 2” (2014). Image by Nash Baker

More: Monumental Installations by Henrique Oliveira Explore the Eerie Inner Nature of Architecture