Paulo Abreu’s Surrealist Compositions Of Nude, Gender Non-Conforming Bodies

Photographs by Paulo Abreu
Text by Stephanie Wade

With his mixture of playfulness and seriousness, Brazilian visual artist Paulo Abreu delves into themes related to human existence. His otherworldly photography uses multiple techniques to create an unpredictable, surrealistic universe where bodies, objects, and landscapes become one.

“The characters we see in my work seem to lack identity, but carry various ideas and concepts related to human existence itself,” explains Abreu to IGNANT. The artist constructs his own form of escapism by manipulating images that are created from genderless bodies interacting with one another, that appear to grow spikes from their limbs or sprout tree branches from their hearts. The dark and moody images depict themes of loneliness, love, delusions, and anguish. “However, these things must not be confused for outright despair, as nowhere does it signal some apocalyptic conclusion to a life-journey.” On the contrary, Abreu’s intention is to show that these experiences are part-and-parcel of what it means to be human.