Antonio Tarsis
From the Ashes, 2023
- Medium
- Guarany Fósforos de Segurança matchbox, balsa wood, paper and charcoal in artist's frame
- Dimensions
- 34.7 x 32.7 x 5 cm
Joseph Clark Collection · JCC-0048
About the work
Matchbox material, balsa wood, paper and charcoal come together in From the Ashes. Everyday packaging retains traces of use and circulation even as it becomes part of a carefully constructed artwork. The title brings residue and renewal into the encounter. Made in 2023, the work connects with Antonio Tarsis’s sustained attention to discarded materials and the social histories they carry.
About the artist
Antonio Tarsis is a Brazilian artist whose work transforms collected packaging and discarded materials into carefully constructed compositions. Matchboxes became an important material in his practice between 2013 and 2015. In an interview published by BOMB, he connects them with the social and material histories of the neighbourhood in Salvador where he lived.
The formal possibilities of colour, repetition and surface remain inseparable from those histories. His work has expanded to other industrial materials and found components, examining how objects circulate and accumulate meanings. Exhibitions include Symbolic Genocide and Storm in a Teacup at Carlos/Ishikawa, and recipe for disaster at Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel.