O rio no qual se nada com os olhos [The river one swims in with one’s eyes], Genor Sales’s (1984, Goiânia, Brazil) first exhibition in São Paulo, is curated by Divino Sobral and takes place at Almeida & Dale Fradique 1430.

The exhibition presents an unprecedented group of watercolors depicting objects related to the containment, treatment, and storage of water—such as amphorae, clay water filters, and fire hydrants—as well as fish and fishing-related objects set against an aqueous background evoked through the painting technique. In this way, the artist addresses social and existential debates surrounding rivers.

“In this exhibition, Genor Sales unfolds a single subject into small groupings of works, creating sequences that develop specific topics,” Sobral writes. “From a formal standpoint, the works gathered here reveal an expansion in the artist’s chromatic paths, as he now seeks to open up his palette, moving away from the murky, brownish tones previously used and drawing closer to blues and greens, embracing yellows and oranges illuminated by the crepuscular light of the Goiás cerrado, which, during periods of drought, gilds the waters of the great rivers,” he adds.

In this new body of work, the paintings are constructed through light, delicate gestures that, in some areas, allow the support beneath the paint to show through—a gesture that approaches writing and emphasizes manuality.

By articulating memory, territory, and other ways of perceiving the world, Genor Sales’s work is grounded in traditional forms of knowledge and in relationships with beings of the forest and the waters, proposing a sensitive and critical reading of the dynamics that run through rivers, bodies, and the systems of life that depend on them.