VARIATIONS ON NEGATIVE SPACE by Pedro Maia

Using 16mm analogue film as a point of departure, Pedro Maia pushes the possibilities of materiality and form of the medium itself. His interest in the physical and haptic qualities of film, as well as the traces of time which lie hidden in an image, are the starting point for the textural exploration and chromatic manipulation. Through mapping the beauty of an image’s patina and how it fades away, we witness a double temporality: we are able to see a moment in time while also witnessing a visual evolution and it's ultima decay.

With Variations on Negative Space we are confronted with a body of work that begs a question. Is what we’re looking at a computer generated image? A moving painting? An experimental film? While the term ‘variation’ refers to improvisation, interpretation and chance, negative space refers to that which is not there, the in between line.