Felippe Moraes
Hermes, 2011
Fine art photographic print and pins on wall
Variable dimensions
Ed. 3 + AP + PE

The work Hermes (2011) draws on a collection of 104 images gathered from various science books, history books and encyclopedias, digitized, printed and mounted as a cloud expanding across the wall.

Smoke is a particularly important element for the work, and in fact the guiding thread of a certain non-linear narrative — it emerges as a symbolic proposition of something material, yet at the very limit of immateriality, manifesting at the same speed at which it begins to disappear. The choice of the title Hermes comes as a tribute to the Greek god of the same name. However, the work does not relate merely to this single deity, but to an extensive, rhizomatic chain of mythologies and philosophical concepts, much like the very configuration of the work when pinned to the wall.

The choice fell on Hermes, but it could just as easily have been Mercury, Exu, or many other possible parallels. What all these mythological entities have in common is that they are ambiguous, swift figures, responsible for communication, for commerce, and for roads and pathways. Like smoke, they establish themselves as quickly as they vanish, deceptive by nature, like a smokescreen that never quite makes clear what lies behind it, yet also communicating with the material world, among men, and with the immaterial, from men toward the transcendent.

This compendium emerges less as an illustration of the concept of this or that mythological figure, and more as a catalyst for the immaterial, symbolic and conceptual questions that these entities represent.

Principais Exposições

• 2018 – Imensurável – CAIXA Cultural Fortaleza (Ceará, Brazil)
• 2013 – 13º Salão Nacional de Artes de Itajaí (Santa Catarina, Brazil)
• 2011 – On Becoming – Fishmarket Gallery (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)