One and Many

The work of Bruno Pacheco (b. 1974, Estoril, Portugal) is characterized by a specific ambiguity towards the field of representation. Despite its mostly figurative nature, his paintings and drawings disclose an anonymity characteristic to its subjects, may these be human figures or random objects.

With the cowboy hat as the central motive of the painting, Pacheco examines the possibilities of indirect narrativity, through the use of variation and association with other objects, lived situations or (art)historical references. One and Many, 2020, depicts a stack of hats, placed with geometric preciseness, one on top of the other. It echoes the infinite space beyond the surface of the canvas, bringing into play associations with Brancusi’s Infinite Column – a modern embodiment of the concept of infinity. Like a photograph, the painting becomes a fragment of a much larger reality subject to change.

By the applied geometric structure and its formal characteristics, Pacheco echoes elements of American Minimalism, embodied, among others, by Donald Judd’s Untitled (Stack) series, tied to concepts of commercial availability and industrial production, bridging the work with the post-industrial age and with aspects of commercial symbolism related to American culture. The hat becomes symbol of intercultural exchange, where objects are stripped of their defining characteristics, and gain new intercultural identity. The distinctive treatment of the painting regarding its color, vivid brushstroke and the sense of monumentality of the depicted, and otherwise ordinary object of consumption, suggests a variety of movement and meaning of a static article, while simultaneously questioning the inherent characteristics of painting and still life.