Exército Monarca

Eight hand painted faience medallions, made by artist Fábio Carvalho over an artistic residency in Portugal, are presented in a solo exhibition at Artur Fidalgo gallery in Rio de Janeiro.

By the end of 2013, Fábio Carvalho took part in an artistic residency at Oficina da Formiga, a small pottery workshop in Ílhavo, Portugal.

There he was able to explore the traditional Portuguese method of faience stencil painting, a 19th century technique that has been long abandoned by the industries. The Oficina da Formiga is one of the rare potteries that preserves this technique.

The artist, thinking of the traditional Portuguese faience plates that often depict kings, aristocracy, historical figures or national heros and the images in Portuguese tiles, created an original drawing in which we see a soldier in a camouflage uniform, with butterfly wings coming out of his back.

Then, Fábio Carvalho created variations of this first drawing, producing a total of eight pieces. The plates had the rims painted with traditional Portuguese faience patterns. The chosen patterns, although always a floral representation, also suggest barbed wire and other elements used in the trenches.

The use of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on some of Fábio Carvalho’s works goes far beyond the simple fact that butterflies are usually associated with the fragile and delicate feminine universe, as opposed to other symbols usually accepted as belonging to the male gender, which both combined composes the main dialectic of his artistic production, which seeks to raise a discussion on gender stereotypes, and to question the common sense that strength and fragility, poetry and virility, masculinity and vulnerability cannot coexist .

exercito Monarca — Fábio Carvalho, *Medalhão Monarca*, 2013

The specific use for the monarch butterfly came as a counterpoint to the camouflage uniforms. Monarch butterflies are toxic, and therefore avoided by predators. There is however, other non-poisoned butterfly species that mimic the monarch’s colourful, exuberant pattern, with obvious benefit since they are also avoided by predators.

With camouflage, one wants to blend in with the environment so as to not be seen. In mimicking it is the contrary – you draw a lot of attention for pretending to be who you are not. But both are equally survival, protecting strategies, that aim at confusing and misleading.

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Fábio Carvalho, Medalhão Monarca, 2013

Fábio Carvalho, Medalhão Monarca, 2013

Fábio Carvalho, Medalhão Monarca, 2013

until April 30, 2014
Fábio Carvalho
Exército Monarca
Artur Fidalgo Galeria
 R. Siqueira Campos, 143 2° piso ljs 147/150
Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

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