In "Taken House", Theo Firmo (Brazil, 1983) presents a series of drawings and a video that keep on his research on portraits and family spaces that belong to collective memory. Images that are given way by lines on graph paper, one of the hallmarks of this Brazilian-born artist who now presents his first solo show in Columpio, where he was first featured in a 2007 group show.


Text by Ildefonso Lopez

Columpio Gallery - specialized in contemporary drawing and paperwork - starts its new season with "Taken House", an exhibition of drawings and a video of the Brazilian-born audiovisual artist Theo Firmo. The title of the show is quite appropriate, for there is a tremendously seductive lightness in the drawings, that invades us in a vague and unexplainable way, just like intruders take over the house in Julio Cortazar's story.

Lines are the essential graphic element in the home and family images suggested by the artist. Graph paper is, once more, the support chosen by Theo to show us with apparent ease his particular view of reality, hiding more often than showing, and allowing us to finish the stories behind them. The personal, intimate and daily are his main gears. Theo Firmo needs no inspiration, he is sure there is beauty everywhere around us. For him, as for Warhol, "everything is pretty".

His artistic production is based on edition and post-production of audiovisual material, especially digital animation, video and audio, besides drawing. He's been featured on a special edition of FAKE Magazine issued by MUSAC for FRIEZE, and in many group shows in diverse galleries of the independent Madrid scene. This is, though, his first solo show. He has recently worked with other artists in "Sanar Madrid", a project of healing drawings for "La Noche En Blanco".