Press: Carlos Pollock de Souza Costa, moving sculptures, wall boxes and wooden furniture

Macho 1993

Size: 1024 × 697 px
Size: 2010 × 3036 px

Summary

Carlos Pollock de Souza Costa is an artist and woodworker in Paraty, RJ, Brazil, who makes moving wooden sculptures, wall boxes and furniture. He has worked with wood for more than forty years.

The moving sculptures

The moving sculptures are tall pieces made of flat wooden boards joined by metal hinges. Each piece opens, folds and reconfigures by hand, and it changes shape in space. Every board stays flat and is never bent; the curves come from the hinges and joints. Carlos uses ipê (a dense Brazilian hardwood), marine plywood made of cedar and muiracatiara (a Brazilian hardwood), among other woods. The sculptures include Macho (1993), Fêmea (1995) and Duo (2006). Duo has never left Carlos's workshop. Onda (2001), Velas (2001) and Ó are earlier works that can no longer be seen.

Fêmea 1995

Size: 1024 × 696 px
Size: 1024 × 725 px

Duo 2006

Size: 3168 × 2112 px
Size: 4368 × 2912 px

The boxes

The boxes (caixas, in Portuguese) are wall boxes made since 2011. The boxes hold objects from work with wood, such as folding rules, chisel offcuts, moulding profiles and turned balusters (a baluster is a small turned post).

The furniture

In the furniture, "mesa" means table and "banco" means bench. Carlos makes tables and benches, one by one, each piece different, from wood he reuses from boats, old furniture and demolition. Mesa Escudo (2025) comes in two versions: one in canela preta (a Brazilian hardwood) and maple, one in demolition woods. Mesa Pupunha (2025) is in pupunha (peach palm wood) and pinho de riga (a pine wood).

Origin

Carlos began working with wood in 1982, repairing a wooden sailing boat in Salvador. The boat had no electricity, so he used hand tools only. He is the grandson of the American painter Charles Pollock and the great-nephew of Jackson Pollock. His workshop is in the Serra da Bocaina, between Paraty and Cunha, next to a river.

Furniture on the site

Photographs

These photographs show sculptures and tables that are already on the website, but some pieces in the list above have no photograph here yet. Credits are still being confirmed and may be different for each photograph, so there are no files to download on this page yet, and the size under each photograph is the size of the file the studio holds. An editor who needs a file or a photograph of another piece can write to [email protected].