Upon the photodegraded flannel rests this intangible presence that both illuminates and consumes the surface – a gradual wearing away by light.

In several earlier works, the artist employed charcoal on surfaces such as paper, aluminum, or glass, crafting atmospheres where the viewer’s presence and the incidence of light constantly shifted the perception of the image. In this exhibition, the shift is fundamental to the process itself. The image no longer relies on material applied to the surface, but rather on its absence. Instead of the human body as a demiurgic being, the photosensitive material is slowly consumed by light itself, through its continuous action. The forms that emerge – drapery, undulations, blemishes, areas of uneven density – evoke mantles, halos, or dissolving forms.

In the background, one image stands apart from the others, featuring a vertical strip that acts as a conduit, concentrating the originating source of this wearing away, for the very light that nourishes is also an agent of destruction.

During a total eclipse, when we cast our gaze upon the ground in the shade of a leafy tree, we see small halos that carve out shapes in delicate crescent curves. Then, the light begins to wane in intensity until the atmospheric suspension of twilight. In the branches of the trees, or in their nests, the birds fall silent. This practice of silence accompanies the night and sleep, yet it also reveals itself under threat: in the dawning of a storm, the approach of a predator, the gathering of rain, a volcanic eruption, a forest fire, or even in the face of death, as an infinite silence woven into the very texture of time.

In Paulo Lisboa’s works, this silence expresses itself in the operative space of the images – devices of suspension – which articulate both death and dream, suspended song and infinite muteness.

The exhibition is on view at Galeria Bruno Múrias until May 17.