Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel presents Troca de segredos [Exchange of secrets], an exhibition of new sculptures and watercolors by Barrão at FDAG Jardins, in São Paulo. The works are assembled from porcelain fragments drawn from an inventory of ornaments and utilitarian objects collected from secondhand markets: conches, giant strawberries, elephants, owls, and other elements from a kitsch universe of household goods. Organized by color and motif in a kind of material library, these objects provide a ready-made palette of finishes and glazes. Working within this formal and chromatic repertoire, Barrão builds abstract structures whose branching contours and proliferating volumes suggest organic growth.

Accumulation gives each sculpture a distinct character. Barrão frequently exposes the least recognizable sides of his source objects, bringing their anonymous surfaces into view and redirecting attention toward volume, contour, and silhouette. Recognition becomes intermittent: a familiar detail emerges within a structure that seems to follow its own logic of cumulative logic. With their particular temperaments, the sculptures evoke beings caught in metamorphosis, as though recording the transformations of figures from a fable. The exhibition’s title refers to the exchanges involved in this process and suggests a more intimate connection between the artworks and the viewer. Objects circulating through the world of commodities enter new relationships, trading visual and social properties as their fragments are joined. From these remnants of household goods, Barrão develops visual codes in which material facts and symbolic allusions continually reshape one another.

The watercolors extend this investigation into volume and spatial relationships on a two-dimensional support. Variations in the density of color and texture create a surrounding space within each image, allowing forms to appear at different depths. Some seem to project forward, while others hover or swim just behind the paper’s surface. While the artist’s early watercolors and drawings served as plans for his sculptures, these compositions now explore spatial possibilities that remain on paper, pursuing an autonomy of their own. These shifts give the compositions a sense of movement and suggest that their forms are still taking shape. Across sculpture and watercolor, Barrão explores how color, accumulation, and the encounter between parts can give rise to bodies with a presence and atmosphere of their own.