It's all fake

“An artist like Athos Bulcão, who always had ties to architecture, now brings the mask into the discussion about space, in his transition between painting and sculpture”.

Paulo Herkenhof

“They are made from durepox, dentist gypsum/plaster, or modeling paste, onto which the artist applies layers of acrylic paint and glitter".

"This then starts to create distorted images, shapes that react to light, little bits of weirdness, and viral, changing creatures”.

Marcus de Lontra Costa

“If the history of the landscape predominates in his paintings, in his masks, which he started designing in 1974, the artist allows his ironic side to flourish. It is something cheeky and mocking, bordering at times on caricature."

Marcus de Lontra Costa   

"In contrast to his public work, which is integrated into architecture, his intimate work, such as the masks, is almost coarse. It is grotesque in how it depicts figures but it stops short of being vulgar because the artist is not given to being rude."

"But it is ridiculous and it reminds us, very jokingly, that we can each appear in this theater of the world: these are masks for different situations." 

Paulo Sérgio Duarte

“A work of art is an illusion. Firstly, because it is absolutely no use at all, that's the enchanting side. Then, how do you tell when a work of art is real or when it is fake? “

Athos Bulcão

The entire set of these masks could make up their own Musée de l'Homme. There is a focus on ugliness, on degradation (like in his Animals). And yet they are strangely beautiful, desirable.

Here, in the use of color, there is the same association between the coarse and extreme sophistication as in any other approach. Contradictorily, they are extremely elegant and closer to his painting work.