Ecological, Social and Political Symmetry

Technique: colored pencil + oil on wood.

Dimensions: 100 X 150 cm

Year: 1989/2020

These works approach the violence against the human being and establish a conceptual symmetry among three different situations: the violence against those that fight for the ecological preservation, against those that fight for better social conditions and against those that fight for political freedom.

They establish a conceptual association between the three situations because the pictures were idealized through symmetrical compositions, which give reason to the titles of the pictures and create a link between the philosophical concepts.

Picture 1 – This picture approaches the violence in Amazon provoked by economical and ecological conflicts. The symmetry of the composition evidences the antagonism between the exploration of the forests in a sustainable way and its destruction due to a disordered exploration. That antagonism became stronger in the last years provoking the death of many rubber latex extractors and culminating in their leader's, Chico Mendes’ death.

Picture 2 – In November 1988, the invasion of Cia. Steel Works in Volta Redonda by the Brazilian army caused the death of three metallurgists who were on strike and were occupying the premises of the steel mill. The extreme use of force by the army caused not only deaths and injuries, but conceptual wounds among the workers, as they felt treated as enemies of the motherland just for demanding social and labor improvements.

Picture 3 – the invasion of the Square Ti an Anmen, in Peking, for the Manchuria’s Army (ordered by Chinese government), provoked the death of thousands of students and Chinese civilians that occupied the square some weeks and fought for a political opening in the Chinese regime.