PJOTA'S SECRET GARDEN IN THE HEART OF LONDON

South London Gallery (SLG) inaugurates Paulo Nimer Pjota: Encantados. In the exhibition, the artist brings together elements from the past, the present, and an imaginary world, introducing the public to a new universe in which established attributions of value to various objects, artefacts, and cultures are dismantled, making way for an alternative future.

Paulo Nimer Pjota (b.1988, São José do Rio Preto) is a Brazilian artist who predominantly works in oil, tempera and acrylic on canvas. His paintings draw on art history, popular culture, mythology and folk tales, merging multiple and often contrasting references to create new, imaginary scenarios. His approach borrows from the sampling and remixing practices adopted in Brazilian hip-hop and rap music, as well as on his experience as a graffiti artist as a teenager. Even then he was an aesthetic disrupter, pushing against the rules governing street art, which he found to be restricting. Breaking down cultural hierarchies has remained at the heart of his practice ever since. 

At the SLG, Pjota will present a new series of paintings against an expansive mural painted directly onto the gallery walls to create a magical environment populated by mythical characters, dragons, crocodiles, monkeys and imaginary beasts. The sun, stars and moon are recurring motifs in Pjota's cosmos, as are ancient and modern vases, shells and invented vessels, often brimming with flowers and hybrid plants. The presence of music is also implied, by fantastical creatures drawn on the walls. A three-headed beast plays the trumpet, horn and sax all at the same time, whilst simultaneously beating a drum. One animal's throat merges with the instrument it's playing, and another sits on a turntable, scratching a record with its feet whilst playing a violin with its hands. This injection of silent music heralds the potential of a hidden world, of secrets behind the surface of this mysterious garden.

The character of that alternative future is deliberately ambiguous. The exhibition's title, Encantados, meaning enchanted in Portuguese, draws on the dual definitions of a word which can refer to being charmed and filled with delight, but also to a state of being placed under a spell or bewitched. The potential for both positive and negative scenarios, the tension between them or their perhaps inevitable coexistence, runs throughout the show. All the works are imbued with a sense of fantasy and magic, but whereas some are overtly joyous, others could be scenes from a post-apocalyptic world. Unlike a story book in which a clear narrative unfolds, with a beginning, middle and end, featuring obvious goodies and baddies, Pjota's works leave the viewer to make their own sense of his fantastical scenes.

The exhibition at the SLG will be Pjota's first exhibition with a public gallery in the UK. It will also be his second institutional solo exhibition following his debut at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, in 2025. 

Encantados will be on display until August 23 at South London Gallery, 65-67 Peckham Road, London (United Kingdom).