Dedo Mau

Original Artwork & Illustration

“There is a paradoxical quality in the work of Rodrigo Gonçalves. Despite the high stylization of his figures, drawings, and compositions, there is an underlying layer that evokes the expressive, sudden, and holistic practices of the single brushstroke drawing, found in Chinese painting, where calligraphy blends with landscape or portraiture.

In terms of figuration, we could say that Dedo Mau belongs to a tradition whose exponent includes a name such as Saul Steinberg or, in animation, the series by director Osvaldo Cavandoli. It is a search for an almost total purification of spatial illusion and volume, of shadows and surroundings, focusing solely on the main figure and its direct complements, which are always at the service of the narrative, purpose, or idea being presented. The idea of representation—long a pillar of Western art for centuries—is less important than the intention of the idea that appears to us, complete, effective, and direct, in the image.

But the voluptuousness of the curves, the dynamics of continuity, the closing of the area (which brings to mind the idea of return, circularity, completeness), makes us imagine the brush which, in legends of Chinese painters or Zen koans, rests upon the paper, travels without hesitation along its improvised and blind path, and ends in glory at the very same starting point—without revealing the seam where the two moments meet, making us believe that everything simply emerged.

This closure also demonstrates the centripetal quality of his drawings. They do not express themselves outwardly, extending—even in the viewer’s imagination—the space, presence, or gestures. There is a central gravity that allows the line to orbit, moving away only to return. In this, there is still something of Asian art, which carries an elegance in its search for the circular, the return to a center that is never lost.

Paul Klee said that a line is a dot that goes for a walk. These lines, in Portuguese, took a full turn.”

Text by Pedro Moura