José Rufino

José Rufino creates sculptures, installations, and paintings that explore individual and collective memory. He is best known for installations employing objects related to family histories—furniture, textiles, and letters—which he combines in order to facilitate the reinterpretation of memories, particularly those associated with life under Brazil's military dictatorship. Rufino also frequently employs inkblots and Rorschach images throughout his oeuvre, referencing the inherent subjectivity of individual perception. In a 2000 series, he printed inkblots on documents provided by families of missing political activists. Rufino has also orchestrated an extensive artistic dialogue with the inkblot works of Andy Warhol, combining repurposed snippets of Warhol’s Rorschach images with pages taken from yearbooks from Warhol’s alma mater, colored paper left over from Warhol’s studio, and photographs of Pittsburgh (Warhol’s hometown.)