Paulo Roberto Leal’s work is a development from the Neoconcrete movement’s foundations: from the premises of Constructivism to the calculus that determines a harmonic entity, each part obeys an established system. Because he started his career as a graphic designer, his work has a ludic side. The choice of paper as a main support and the recurrent use of acrylic boxes in the series of ‘Armagens’ need the spectator’s participation to be completed: the work changes by the flipping of the box. In his Entretela, front and back are intertwined: a canvas is cut in strips which are sewn back together. The canvas gains a renewed lightness when Leal shows what was implicit – its reverse. On the whole, Leal’s research revolves around two basic presets: the plane (as an element of continuity) and space (highlighted by the modulations’ limits). In his words: ‘With the materials I make an infinite modulation where the form comes from its endless re-composition. Until some point in history, the canvas surface became a space where something needed to happen while its limits served to establish proportions. Nowadays, as an extension of this, some of my structures inhabit the canvas’s limited space as if it were space itself. Verticality and horizontality are no longer determined by the work but by the spectator.’
