Abstract Eruption III

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

In his shape shifting, silent video 'Abstract Eruption III', Rodrigo Garcia Dutra plays with key ingredients for optical illusions: objects, forms, time, and space. We are taken on a journey shifting from seductive desert landscapes, to a coastline, and whitewashed houses at sunset. Our eyes travel from one idyllic space to another through the lens of a circle that becomes a square, that becomes a circle, that becomes a square; and suddenly you realise that while you have been watching, all concept of time has disappeared. Each frame in the video erupts into a succession of circles and squares, dissecting and altering the landscape into a series of composite shapes of contrasting colour. 

The device of the circle draws us in and out of the landscape – variously suggesting a tunnel, a binocular or a microscopic lens. Similarly, the square device suggests a frame through which to explore a sense of being in the landscape or remaining outside of it. In this eerily beautiful world of widening and narrowing circles and squares, the images begin to conflate with an arctic becoming desert and ice turning to rust. 

Dutra has revealed that the video was made through the overlay of an animation over a compilation of found footage of volcano eruptions that he discovered on YouTube. The work conveys the artist's interest in the graphics of tile patterns, cloth, and other visual systems – forms and motifs that are widely familiar across cultures, histories and personal narratives. His practice explores the boundaries between representation and abstraction, which he associates with a shift away from localised religious or traditional motifs, towards an international language of modernism.

London-based Brazilian artist, Rodrigo Garcia Dutra studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, and Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London in 2014. His work was included in the São Pâolo Biennial in 2008 and 2014, and he regularly exhibits in the UK, Europe and further afield.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

video, QuickTime file format

Artist

Rodrigo Garcia Dutra (1981 - )

Title

Abstract Eruption III

Edition

1/5

Date

2014

Medium

Video: QuickTime master, Component Y'CbCr, 10-bit, 4:2:2

Acquisition

Purchased from South London Gallery via Paddle8, December 2014

Provenance

the artist; South London Gallery; from whom purchased through Paddle8 online auction, 12 December 2014

GAC number

M18632/1