Uiler Costa-Santos | Canson Infinity

Uiler Costa-Santos was born in 1983, and lives and works in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia, Brazil. He is a visual artist and educator. Through photography and the study of images, his research seeks to interlace the imagination of the landscape and the politics of redistribution of the senses through abstraction. His work uses images as aesthetic vehicles, and he employs them as tools to offer the body different perceptual experiences based on common, everyday spaces, returning to it the potentialities of geo-political imagination. Since 2017 the artist has dedicated himself to the series “Sizigia”, a project using aerial photography of the Itaparica channel, a region on the coast of Bahia, in which he traces different reliefs and movements of the tide creating new ways to interpret the local landscape. In 2022 he held the solo exhibitions Cosmologia da maré baixa [Cosmology of low tide] (Galeria Babel-SP) and Coroas [Crowns] (Museu de Arte da Bahia-BA). His group exhibitions include the Rencontres de Bamako Photography Biennial 2022-2023. Since 2015 he has taught photography courses with an emphasis on technique and poetic research, such as “The path emerges by walking: Memory, Belonging and Imagination in artistic projects At SESC do Paço (Curitiba). His artistic work is represented by Paulo Darzé Galeria (BR), Babel (BR/USA) and São Mamede (PT).

Website: www.uiler.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/uilercosta

"In the studio, each gesture inaugurates a new universe of possibilities. Between strokes and silences, there is an unavoidable moment: the instant of printing. It is at this point that the dialogue between idea and substrate becomes decisive, for my expression only reaches its fullness when it finally comes to life on paper. This substrate is not neutral: it embraces and reverberates the message, influencing what the eyes see and what the imagination senses.

That is why the careful choice of paper goes far beyond mere aesthetic preference; it deepens the dialogue between the work and the viewer. In my practice, whose core lies in the imaginary, in visual enigmas, and in the suspension of certainties, any random substrate would not suffice. I sought something that, in addition to rigorously reproducing texture and relief, could maintain the solidity of colors, withstand the passage of time, and offer a surface capable of welcoming both technical precision and poetic restlessness. That’s how I arrived at the papers in the Canson Infinity Arches line.

Canson® Infinity ARCHES® Aquarelle Rag 310 g/m² – Matte adds an almost tactile layer to the experience. Its robust weight grants the work a palpable physical presence, while the matte finish enhances color nuances without reflections that distract from the essential. The slightly grained texture, inspired by the traditional watercolor paper technique, creates small variations that highlight contrasts and the sense of three-dimensionality. Moreover, it is a 100% cotton, acid-free paper with a neutral pH, ensuring durability and fidelity over time—not just for the image, but for the intention embedded in each stroke.

In this process, there is also a technical challenge: correctly calibrating colors and preserving the tonal subtleties that compose my visual poetics. The print quality afforded by this paper allows shadows, mid-tones, and textures to be reproduced with precision, enhancing the sense of depth and making visible that which often remains hidden on the threshold between the imagined and the observable. In other words, printing is not merely a finishing act: it is the consolidation of a dimension.

This dimension invites the public to cross the boundaries of the obvious, engaging in a silent dialogue—not only with what is seen, but with what stirs within each individual. The chosen scale, combined with the right surface, ensures that the work and the viewer converge in both a physical and symbolic space. Naturally, there are additional considerations: controlling humidity, temperature, and lighting, for instance, so that the print maintains its integrity. These are practical factors that underpin a denser artistic experience, where the substrate serves not merely as a backdrop, but as an amplifier of the message.

Ultimately, it is in this balance between poetic intention and technical rigor that the paper becomes something alive. It participates in the work as an inseparable element of what I wish to share: the opening of a breach in reality, where certainties dissolve and the new can emerge. It is in this synergy between gesture, paper, and printing that everything takes form—and thus, each image gains the power to sow doubts, wonders, and possibilities that extend beyond the surface."