Heavy like the force between us

Heavy like the force between us shows a man in profile, head tilted back and eyes closed, holding a bird against his throat with one hand. His face and the bird are washed in golden ochre, while his shoulder falls into deep black against a white ground.

The bird pressed to the throat is one of the most charged images in Ritchelly Oliveira’s vocabulary, simultaneously tender and suffocating. At 190 cm the face is far larger than life, and the gap between the finished head and the abandoned edges of the body becomes an absence the size of a person.

Unique work, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 190 × 150 cm (74.8 × 59.1 in). Born in Brazil in 1993 and trained in Visual Arts at the Federal University of Goiás, Ritchelly Oliveira has worked with the human figure since 2012. In 2015 he began the series Lacunas (Gaps) by asking people to talk about past relationships and what they understood love to be, and that practice of listening remains underneath the work. His work has been exhibited in Goiânia, Berlin, Miami, New York and Los Angeles, including the solo exhibition Fragility at La Brea Studio in 2023, and has appeared in international art publications such as Beautiful Bizarre.

Available for private viewing at Tilsitt Gallery in Porto, or worldwide delivery upon inquiry.