Artist

Renato Leal

Renato Leal.

1973 - Santos-SP, Brazil.

Lives and works in São Paulo-SP. He is a visual artist with a degree in Architecture and Urbanism, from where he brought to his artistic research the interest in the relationships of bodies in space and the structuring, materiality and intangibility of things.

He found in drawing his primordial language and in geometry the expression for the construction of his artistic thought. In his research, the artist investigates systemic concepts, repetition, progression, movement, space and perception of time. His works are characterized by the accumulation of elements and the structuring of their relationship within a mathematical game, often using the architecture where they are displayed as a support.

As noted by the curator Douglas de Freitas, in the text that accompanied the artist's first solo show at the gallery Arte Formatto, in São Paulo, "Circles, squares, triangles, geometry and its various elements are the tools that man created to try to organise and give meaning and form to the non-visible, as in graphs and chemical elements, or to outline certain possible rules for visual perception, such as harmony and proportions in nature, later reflected in human constructions, such as architecture, design and art. Renato Leal's production manifests itself in both the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional through drawings, photographs, sculptures and installations that explore geometry to constitute form, size, structure, define position, highlight properties of the spaces where they are inserted and explore possibilities of physical and mathematical reasoning."

The artist has exhibited regularly since 2004 in Brazil and abroad, with highlights of solo exhibitions: "Intersections," at Arte Formatto gallery, in São Paulo; "Impermanence," at Central Galeria, in São Paulo; "Renato Leal - Exhibition Program 2014," at MARP, in Ribeirão Preto; "Do Cubo ao Quadrado, Simetrias Imperfeitas," curated by Fátima Lambert, Casa Museu Medeiros e Almeida, in Lisbon; and "Dynamics of the Invisible," curated by Fátima Lambert, at Quase Galeria, in Porto. She has also participated in several group exhibitions, with highlights including: "The Skin and Thickness of Drawing," curated by Fátima Lambert, an itinerant project held in São Paulo, Lisbon and in Porto; "Reformar," curated by Raphael Fonseca, at Sesc Santo André; "Geographies, Our Place Is Path," curated by Bernardo Mosqueira, at Sesc Santos; "Geographies: Anthology of Omissions and Unfolding," curated by Douglas de Freitas, at Sesc Jundiaí; "Boîte Invaliden," curated by Paulo Reis and Josué Mattos, Invaliden 1 Gallery, Berlin; "Propositions," curated by Daniela Labra, Luciana Caravello Arte Contemporânea, Rio de Janeiro-RJ; "43 Visions of Mount Fuji by Brazilian contemporary artists," FAL, Musashino University of Art, Tokyo; "STUDIOLO XXI - Drawing and Affinities," curated by Fátima Lambert, Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, Évora; "Poetics Of Nature," curated by Katia Canton, MAC-USP, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo.