Under the open sky 
José Augusto Ribeiro This exhibition brings together two groups of works that, at first glance, seem quite distinct from each other, yet are connected by a shared internal logic—woven through the ways of thinking and making, through the technical, ethical, and aesthetic rigor—that have characterized Santídio Pereira’s work up to this point. One group consists of woodcuts evoking the sky (starry nights, constellations, galaxies, the cosmos), while the other features gouaches and woodcuts depicting bromeliads. If the first set points to celestial dimensions, the second is rooted in the earthly realm. This range—the scale that spans from ground to firmament—is central to the exhibition, as it reflects the scope of interests currently guiding the artist’s practice. However, the distinctions here are not simple or strictly dichotomous, nor are they limited to the "motifs" represented in one series or the other. The two bodies of work were created in parallel, between January and June 2025. According to Santídio, the idea for the sky-themed prints arose from the observation of unexpected marks—holes made by termites—in woodblocks used to print bromeliad leaves and blooms, images that have been a recurring element in his work since at least 2021. In short: what a sterile or clinical gaze might have dismissed as a flaw or error caught his attention and imagination. It wouldn't be far-fetched to say that one body of work “gave birth” to the other. Notably, this is the first time that these sky-referencing woodcuts are being shown publicly, marking a new inflection point in Santídio’s trajectory—a path that, over nearly a decade, has unfolded through a sequence of continuities, variations, and diversions, yet always with fluidity. Since 2017, the artist’s production has stood out for its powerful sense of synthesis: simple, direct forms, the use of one or few colors per print, representations of natural elements (animals, plants, mountains), and large-scale woodcuts. Now, with the sky series, the reductive strategies of his practice continue these characteristics while also taking the work into entirely new territory. With minimal intervention—an austere use of resources not centered on drawing but on perforating plywood panels, printed in single colors—his work evokes the image of something immeasurable. These may not even be "skies" in the strict sense. What we see are dots, scratches, smudges on colored fields—yellow, green, blue, purple. Yet it is the subtle variation in the size of these white dots that creates an illusion of depth, suggesting on paper a space as vast as the universe seen from Earth. From there, the larger white, ink-free marks begin to resemble constellations. The clustering of dots among the wood’s natural grain can also be seen as celestial bodies. Thus, even in their sobriety and restraint, the images evoke stars, comets, galaxies, nebulae, supernovae, black holes. They prompt intense visual engagement, inviting the viewer to mentally piece together what unfolds across their surfaces. The visual system Santídio establishes gives the impression that any information conveyed in these works passes through an astronomical filter. On the other hand, the process of creating these images involves a certain violence—carving into wood with gouges, nails, drills, switching between bits of different widths to vary the markings. How are these elements arranged on the surface? Are the compositions based on preexisting plans, or are they spontaneous? Both, in fact. Some of these prints were guided by star maps, photographs, and especially notes Santídio recorded on mobile drawing apps while observing the sky—mostly in Isaias Coelho, the small town in the Piauí countryside where he was born. Some images, then, reproduce specific regions of the night sky, or at least as he perceived them. This means they are also filtered through memory and shaped by the processes and materials used—through predictable, controllable factors: the wood grain, the consistency of the ink, how it adheres to paper, and so on. Other works were made entirely without external reference, relying solely on Santídio’s developing internal visual vocabulary of the sky. Regardless, the images are always constructed; and it's striking to consider how this artisanal process brings into close view a tiny fragment of something that lies billions of light-years away—now not overhead, but directly before our eyes, as if sliding across the walls. Santídio’s celestial images lack horizon, center, or perspective. They are flat surfaces that nonetheless point to the infinite. There is no illusionism or sentimentality. The square format of the woodcuts reinforces the non-hierarchical arrangement of elements—no privileged vantage point, no vertical or horizontal orientation, no fixed direction of reading. The visual experience of these works is at once wandering and focused. The viewer’s gaze drifts across the dispersed elements, yet attention must also be finely attuned to detail—details that are not secondary, but integral to the overall image. Although each woodcut stands on its own (each is a unique print), certain qualities only become apparent when they are seen together, side by side, as they are here. The experimental nature of Santídio’s practice emerges not only in the making of each piece, but also in the repetitions and variations between them—through different densities of visual events; shifts in color and tone (from bright blues to deep purples, from futuristic vibrant yellows to dark emerald greens); and the handling of ink, whether for solid or diluted effects. It becomes clear, upon reflection, that Santídio’s color choices are not grounded in empirical observation—he is not concerned with reproducing “local color.” He does not depict what he sees in nature, but how he perceives it—how he feels it, not only with his eyes, but through all his senses, through his body: temperature, scent, texture, humidity, motion, sound… There is a trace of all of this in his colors, a kind of synesthesia. Ultimately, the works in this exhibition make unmistakable the painterly nature of his art. In contrast to the expansive yet silent character of the sky-themed prints, the bromeliad works are compact and vibrant. Each gouache or woodcut features a single figure, centered on the surface, rendered in at most two colors. The shape of the plant—its leaves and blooms—appears in isolation, turned into a kind of icon, a symbol, with no horizon, no ground, no surrounding context. It floats freely against the white of the paper. There is no ambiguity about what these forms represent. And the choice of bromeliads is deliberate: although they take on varied shapes, sizes, and colors, bromeliads generally have leaves arranged in rosettes, with sheaths and blades extending upward, sideways, drooping—forms that, when transferred to paper, generate dynamic, multi-directional compositions, pushing outward from the center, always testing the boundaries of the page. Despite their central placement, the organization of these forms does not seek symmetry or static balance. Instead, Santídio builds a system of elements that suggests both organic growth and constructed form. His spatial layout has been compared to the work of botanical illustrators, scientific images where species also appear centered and hovering on the page, stripped of weight or ground.1 However, Santídio’s work does more than reduce—rather than reproduce—the forms of his subjects; it also scales up to poster dimensions, evoking the language of public display, of signage, of graphic communication that aims to grab attention and make an immediate, impactful statement. Compared to the sky woodcuts—which draw the viewer in, where color fields filled with minute graphic signs invite close inspection—the bromeliads, through their iconicity and bold proportions, seem designed to be seen from a distance, in passing, or by accident—and remain striking. Nothing here is intricate; everything is direct. The forms are elemental, straightforward. The interplay between line and color is striking, as is the contrast between outline and surface. In these works, the intensity of color matches the precision of the drawing. In the gouaches, for instance, it’s the brushstrokes—more specifically, their movement—that gently suggest the volume of the leaves, with a soft, velvety feel achieved through subtle tonal shifts. In the prints, it’s the lines and cuts that hint at such volumes (like the curve of a leaf), yet always under the dominance of the two-dimensional plane and uniform fields of color. These differences reflect not only the visual results but also the nature of each medium: in printmaking, the process involves a physical tension between carving and extending the lines, while in the gouaches, the making calls for a steady, delicate hand to let the paint glide across the paper, giving the forms a vibrant energy through vivid color tones. These synthetic, light, flat, and colorful figures, by their very nature, verge on ornament and decoration—not because they embellish or adorn the composition, but because they are schematic, immediate, and depthless, some even bordering on abstraction. At this point, it’s worth noting that part of this body of work resonates with Henri Matisse, particularly his paper cutouts created in the 1940s and 1950s. In a way, Santídio draws and paints not with scissors, but with his cutting tools, infusing a kind of sober, quietly joyful spirit into these plant forms—especially through the colors and the way the foliage opens outward. In interviews and writings, Santídio often refers to one of the foundational ideas of representation: making something present in the face of absence—bringing into the world something that speaks to what is missing, what is distant, or what survives only as memory. He recalls, for instance, that when he first began working with wood, having recently arrived in São Paulo from Piauí at the age of eight, he built a wooden horse to cope with the longing for the animal he had raised in his previous home.2 In his words, the choice to depict plants came from a similar place when reflecting on his life in the city: “Looking at a plant in its natural environment, being able to smell it, and perceive the relationships it establishes within that space—this is something that’s quickly becoming rare.”3 More recently, Santídio shared that when he saw stars in the termite holes left on a bromeliad woodcut, he thought about how rare it has become to observe the night sky in major urban centers.4 He thought, too, about both poetry and science—the poetic associations that arise when we look at luminous celestial bodies (often tied to emotions, the infinite, transcendence, the divine, freedom, and so on), and the body of knowledge formed since antiquity through the study of such phenomena and the intergalactic universe. His thoughts also turned to warnings by Indigenous communities about the potential "fall of the sky"—a metaphor for environmental collapse.5 In this exhibition, Santídio absorbs this rich conceptual backdrop into his process and responds with works that are neither discursive nor narrative—an intentional stance in a cultural moment where art is often expected to occupy clearly defined thematic arenas. Here, his approach seems designed to remain open, undefined, and under the open sky—preserving his exploration of form and language beyond imposed boundaries. In a text published in the catalog for Botânica, Santídio Pereira’s solo exhibition at Galeria Estação in 2022, curator Tiago Mesquita writes: "His spatial framework, nonetheless, allows us to relate his woodcuts to the scientific figuration of another era. For reasons unknown, the artist adopts a spatial scheme that is strikingly similar. Like the naturalists, Santídio also isolates the species he works with, centering them in some way, stripping them of both weight and ground." — Mesquita, Tiago. Santídio Pereira: Botânica. São Paulo: Galeria Estação, 2022. Interview: Cauê Alves and Santídio Pereira." In: Santídio Pereira: Fertile Landscapes. São Paulo: Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, p. 61. Pereira, Santídio. Between Two Tropics. Text written to accompany the artist’s solo exhibition held at Galeria Estação between 2020 and 2021. Published at: https://galeriaestacao.com.br/pt-br/exposicao/107/santidio-pereira (accessed July 8, 2025). Conversations with the author, between June and July 2025. Kopenawa, Davi; Albert, Bruce. The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015.