Wabi Sabi 72B

Silvia Poloto
Mixed media
2019

Discovery Hall, Fourth Floor

Silvia Poloto, born in Brazil and based in San Francisco, is a contemporary, abstract artist. She works with a variety of mediums -- photography, sculpture, video, and paint -- and strives to incorporate elements of each practice into her primary medium of painting. Her abstract compositions are layered with geometric shapes, lines, and text, and her large, sweeping brush strokes in vibrant colors add dynamism and depth. She keeps the viewer engaged in the process through the many layers and unexpected and non-linear design. 
 
In the artist's own words:
 
“This body of work began while I was designing my home. The relationship between me and the home structure was felt. Was lived. As if I were inside one of my paintings.

From the outside, from the inside out, me and the empty space, me and the objects, how the objects were placed and in return placed me, the relationship among each other and the negative space around it. I became an active part of the space as much as a passive one, as I experienced myself having total control over it while having no control at all.
 
What I sought with my living space, and continues with my artwork, is a kind of essential refined simplicity reduced to the extreme, understated and unassuming yet with active presence, dynamic possibility and quiet authority. A breathing space for essence to emerge.
 
For this body of work, I use paper as a primary medium – gluing and pulling the paper back leaving marks which become the brushstrokes, the underlying structure of the painting, where agency and possibility engage each other in trust. The nicks, chips, bruises, scars and dents each add to their undiminished poise and strength of character. Imperfect and unpredictable, yet inevitable. They don’t shout, they whisper.”
 
Poloto earned her MBA from the Getulio Vargas Foundation in San Paulo, Brazil and her BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of San Paulo. Her work has been exhibited at institutions around the world, such as the Florence Biennale, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, and the DeYoung Museum, San Francisco where she was an artist in residence. Her work has been collected by institutional and corporate collectors throughout the United States.

You can watch a conversation discussing her artwork and inspirations with art advisor Danielle Wohl in the Talks with the Artists interview series below.