Berlin is difficult to make quiet.
That same energy runs through the work of Ál Varo Tavares D’Guilherme — an Angolan-born artist whose practice has developed between Luanda, Lisbon and Berlin.
His paintings bring together fragments of urban life, writing, mythology and personal experience. Colours collide, words appear unexpectedly and different references coexist without needing to resolve into a single story.
Ál Varo describes his approach as Neo Brut — combining rawness with precision and resisting predetermined narratives.
From the city into the apartment
Ál has described life itself as one of the main sources of his imagination, with the streets of cities including Berlin playing an important role in his work. (Oblo Gallery)
That made bringing his work into a tenitt home particularly interesting.
Instead of art being something neutral that simply completes an interior, his work brings some of the complexity of the city inside: layered, imperfect, energetic and constantly revealing something new.
For someone arriving in Berlin, the apartment becomes more than a place located in the city.
A little of the city lives inside it.
Watch the story
See Ál Varo, his work and the apartment come together.