“I chose to honor friends,” the artist wrote to me. He quickly added that he didn’t know the definition of friendship and admitted that the theme of his upcoming exhibition was based on a major cliché. Relationships evolve over the years, and naming the undefined is an unreasonable task. But it is precisely that which has no definition that Bartolomeu Santos seeks to address in his new series of works: what overflows limits, life in uncontrolled expansion, the artwork in constant transformation. “Friend and Foe is looking good to me,” he stated. Friend, foe, and the universe that exists between the two. After all, don’t we carry all of that within ourselves?

Works of art allow the most complex and ambiguous relationships to take shape, not so much to define them but to sustain them. Looking at Verrocchio’s sculpture of David, triumphing over the head of Goliath, naturally makes us think of the moral and political side it represents: a delicate hero who has just beheaded the violent giant (“size doesn’t matter,” as the saying goes). But, more than that, it prompts us to question: isn’t today’s David tomorrow’s Goliath? Or, even: aren’t the two the same person?

Somewhere between control and chaos, finished and in-progress works, painting and sculpture, Bartolomeu Santos invites us to explore his universe full of doubts and small certainties. Sponges, the main material in his work, are moldable, flexible, and absorbent—much like how our existence should be. In previous series, the sponges were protected by acrylic boxes or vacuum-sealed inside plastic bags. In this exhibition, the sponges expand and occupy the space of Galeria FOCO, much like they take over a large part of the artist’s studio.

In his works, everyday materials “close at hand” become metaphors for the unfolding of life, which evolves through unexpected encounters. “When we have a very clear goal, with a very certain path, without detours, without room for distraction, we risk failing to create that magic so closely tied to being alive,” he wrote again.

The value placed on process, trial and error, on going back and starting over, gains strength in the metanarrative so present in Bartolomeu’s work. His pieces are created with tools from his studio, which in the end are incorporated into the artworks themselves. The sculpture-paintings made from transient materials also invite reflection on the idea of art as a monument. However, his sculpture is much closer to the processual, the everyday, the “patchwork maker” who, little by little, manages to make things work.

Text by Julia Flamingo