There is no memory without touch. The first memory forms at the mouth of the infant and evolves swiftly through tactility. This sensory recall is known as haptic memory and though it's impact is fleeting, it builds over time. The eyes describe texture but the hand absorbs it. Our bodies recall the immediate terrain as inviting or hostile, yielding or sealed through hungry senses. What is felt is not forgotten.
As the work of Eduardo Santos evolves, the physical presence of his primal themes have become more intense. These new works possess a sculptural geology that evokes three dimensional maps, surging landforms and cooled hardened magma. Their palette is torn between an aquatic mineral spectrum and the rubbed raw pinks of flesh. The cleaving between skin and crystal, seabed and stone create a de-stablising drama at the core of each painting. Inspired by the bedrock of his indigenous childhood in Brazil, his forms are his folklore. To apprehend the work is to meet memory: a private lexicon of interior landscapes that evoke the earthy environment of life at the river's edge and the ever present vast interior of the forest and the sea.
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