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RAFAEL SLIKS
"SOULAGE"
Oil on canvas. 73x60cm
/// BIOGRAPHY ///
Rafael Sliks is a Brazilian artist born in São Paulo in 1981, in the Bela Vista neighborhood. He is now a world-renowned street writer. His murals and paintings on canvas are exhibited worldwide. He participates in festivals, art fairs, and exhibitions in the United States, Asia, and Europe.
A characteristic of his practice is incessant repetition. Like a mantra, Sliks obsessively writes and rewrites his name, forcing its spelling to break free, reaching another state that reconfigures and escapes conventional written language. While graffiti is in itself a way of proposing alternative approaches to writing, Sliks radicalizes this attempt.
His art is eminently gestural, energetic, and engages his entire body, drawing upon his bodily memory. For him, perfecting a specific movement also leads to self-improvement. He has a true work philosophy. While still enjoying his street graffiti, he cultivates a sublimation of this delinquent impulse in his studio, these two aspects of his personality and his art coexisting.
