Raphael Alves: Riversick
© Raphael Alves
Riversick
Curator: Lara Ciarabellini
Raphael's pictures unveil the sense of eternity of the Amazonia. With the sensibility deriving from being born in the most magnificent, powerful, extreme, and complex environment in the world, Raphael shows great respect and fear for his territory. He keeps away from anthropological stereotypes or epic stories. His sense of belonging to the places and situations is shared with the viewer and the identity of Amazonians becomes intimate through his eyes.
In his two projects, Se essa rua fosse minha (If this street were mine) and Riversick, the use of ideal lines as leitmotif - the street and the river – and the feeling of slowness perceivable from his pictures, transmit a sense of the time passing and never ending. The process of nature's continous rebirth and his personal experience of rediscovering his home land enhance the sense of eternal life, his own rebirth.
At the same time, the projects tend to give two different perspectives of his home land. In Riversick, the presence of the river leads the narrative; human beings is almost always portrayed as secondary element in the scene, or in some cases, in an anthropomorphic way. In Se essa rua fosse minha, people create the sense of the place. While both projects maintain mainly the same distance from the subject, Riversick's main focus is in the immensity of the rivers, and the conflictual emotions: a wider point of view of his land, his macrocosm. Raphael share his microcosm in Se essa rua fosse minha. Together, they can be considered as a fascinated perspective to understand Amazonian identity.
© Lara Ciarabellini 2016