On the the Gallery’s second floor, the public is invited to enjoy the exhibit, Lascas [‘Shards’], by Alberto Martins. The show features some 15 sculptures never seen before, made from sheets of metal painted black or unpainted, and wooden planks gouged with a series of grooves, which take the artist’s inquiries into the nature of graphics, relief, sculpture and poetry to a deeper level.

The use that the artist makes of large black masses, compacted or scratched with inscriptions, and sheets of rust, draws the gaze towards a multidimensional tactile experience whereby spaces alternately advance and pull away, within a most unusual time scheme.

Open to various readings, these pieces can both evoke the great hulls of ships – which have been the subject of the artist’s prints and poems (for example, in his 2002 book, Cais (‘Pier’)) — as well as his relationship with writing, his initial training as a printmaker (considering the intense and nearly exclusive use of black), as well as his experience as a publisher, particularly the pieces that the author informally refers to as “books.”

The exhibit is completed by the release of the booklet Lascas (‘Shards’), which consists of 15 images and poems by Alberto Martins, with the first of the series actually entitled, Diário de uma exposição (‘Diary of an exhibit’), which states: "Heading out across town in search of a can of paint just goes with the job. Since these things happen, it’s something that the work has to answer for, not the artist.”

Artist and writer Alberto Martins graduated from the University of São Paulo (USP) in 1981. In the same year he began his work as a printmaker with Evandro Carlos Jardim, at USP’s School of Communications and Arts (ECA). In 1985 he studied printmaking at the Pratt Graphics Center in New York, and since his return to Brazil he has taken part in a number of exhibits both here and abroad. In 2007, the Estação Pinacoteca in São Paulo presented the retrospective Em trânsito (‘In Transit’) bringing together prints and sculptures created since 1987. In 2010, he presented the exhibit Cor, Corte, Ferrugem (‘Color, Cut, Rust’), his first individual show on the gallery circuit, at Galeria Raquel Arnaud, which has been representing him since 2007.

In 2014, his works appeared in the show, Contemporary Brazilian Printmaking, at the International Print Center in New York.