“Rise of the bird people”, Saddo na Objectos Misturados

Saddo, Romanian artist and illustrator, has studied graphics in Cluj-Napoca, where he founded one of the first street-art collectives in Romania, The Playground. Always fond of street-art and murals, he participated in many mural festivals, and in the last years he slowly shifted his focus more towards creating art for group exhibitions in galleries all over the world, in Bucharest, Timisoara, Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm, New York, Ottawa, Montreal, Bangkok, Hong Kong, etc.

His detailed illustrations and paintings are inspired by Old Masters of 15th – 17th century, Bosch, Brueghel, Arcimboldo, naturalistic illustrations of animal and plant life, Ernst Haeckel’s depictions of marine life, Walton Ford’s watercolors, Islamic Art, myths, Renaissance costumes and armors, sci-fi novels and movies.

He’s always been fascinated by stories and myths, thus his pieces tend to become illustrations for imaginary untold stories, that challenge the viewer to take the shapes, characters, symbols, animals and mix them in different possible stories.

His show at Objectos Misturados is his first solo-show, developed entirely in the last five months since Saddo moved to Lisbon together with his girlfriend Aitch.
Visually the pieces are very much influenced by imagery of Spanish and Portuguese explorers and “conquistadores” from the 15th – 17th centuries, by pictures and illustrations of birds, Islamic miniatures depicting battle scenes, and by sci-fi and horror movies like The Twilight Zone, Planet of the Apes or Hitchcock’s The Birds.
The series brings a twist to the self-centered portraits of conquerors, replacing the human face with bird heads, and it depicts a fantastic world of the future, in which humans have slowly devolved into savages or even wild animals, and the world is ruled by a race of super-birds, who are conquering the last human groups. Thus the human history of conquests and extinction of other human communities and entire species of animals, repeats itself but finds human race in the opposite role, that of a species which is hunted and almost extinct. The illustrations come from a fascination for myths, eerie folk stories, fantastic scenarios, but can also be viewed as an invitation to modesty and more respect for nature and all the earthlings.

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Uma das vantagens da Internet é termos a possibilidade de estabelecer o contacto imediato com artistas cujo trabalho nos cativa. Há cerca de 2 anos conhecemos o trabalho da artista romena Aitch através duma publicação com uma ilustração dela. Procurámos mais informação e adorámos o que vimos. A medo, fizemos-lhe um convite para um exposição na remota Viana do Castelo. Na sequência desse convite conhecemos o trabalho do Saddo, também ele fantástico. É um prazer para nós dar sentido ao que sempre sonhamos para a Objectos Misturados convidando artistas que admiramos e que se vão convertendo em amigos.

Objectos Misturados

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No dia da inauguração contamos ainda com a presença da Nuvem, cake design.

O gosto pela culinária está-me no sangue e apesar do esforço familiar de o neutralizar ele acabou mesmo por vir à tona! Sou filho e neto de pasteleiros e desde que me lembro que mergulho em doces! A minha queda para a veia artística cedo apareceu, mas foi canalizada para outros percursos – a arquitectura.
Devia ter começado a perceber a mudança quando passei a comprar mais revistas, livros e blogs de culinária do que de arquitectura e quando o meu canal eleito de televisão se tornou o foodnetwork.

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OBJECTOS MISTURADOS
Rua Mateus Barbosa, nº32, Viana do Castelo
10:00-13:00 e 14:00-18:30, seg. a sáb.
tel: 258 828 415 ||| objectos@objectos-misturados.pt