JOSÉ RUFINO
“Tempus Fluvium” 2015
The artwork, assembled in the Hangar’s external wall, is the profile of Jacuípe River, from its source to its outlet in Una, all composed of parts found in the repair shop (nuts and bolts, screws, screwdrivers...). An iron replica of Colonel José Pessoa de Queiroz’s chair, founder of Usina Santa Terezinha, receives the Una River, made of iron, symbolizing the end of a cycle.
“José Rufino’s Hangar” 2015
Rufino, in a frenetic process of production, occupies the old hangar of the company’s airplane, in which he lands his permanent installation, naming the space “José Rufino’s Hangar”. The installation with drawings and sculptures addresses issues of the Usina Santa Terezinha, bringing to reflection stories of workers since the cutting of the sugarcane, workers in the industry, of the correlated activities, in short so many lives dedicated to the sugar production, families that lived there, their sacrifices and efforts, their memories honored there through the rescue of materials once abandoned in the bottom of the old warehouse, now redefined into works of art.
José Rufino
João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil, 1965
He currently lives and works in João Pessoa
Artist, PhD in geosciences and professor of visual arts at the Federal University of Paraíba. In the 1980s he developed his artistic journey through poetry, both concrete and visual, and postal art, while also dedicating himself to painting and drawing, and finally to large-scale installations. The declining universe of the sugarcane plantations in northeastern Brazil drove his initial work. Since then, dichotomous dialogues between memory and oblivion, opulence, and decadence, or public and private have influenced his work.
