Using mainly wood, concrete, aluminum, and other industrial materials, José Damasceno creates objects and installations that push the boundaries and subvert the concept of traditional sculpture. His works are characterized by conceptual and allegorical operations of transforming space, depth, weights, and movement. Making the shifting perceptions from society a point of departure of his work, Damasceno's practice challenges traditional theories on art and politics while holding a mirror up to the society.

- Árvore Inconsciente V, 2000
is a vertical sculpture made of a series of transparent plastic elements filled with cotton waste, the nature of which resembles a rhizomatic structure suggestive of a complex web of non-hierarchical multiplication, movement, and evolution traditionally characteristic for organic forms. Inspired by Gilles Delueze and Félix Guattari's philosophy, as introduced in - A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
, the sculpture operates as a metaphorical model for culture. According to Delueze and Guattari, the rhizome is characterized by ceaselessly establishing connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, science, and social struggle. Instead of a linear structure, the rhizome presents history and culture as a complex chain of relations with no end. Using references from biology and the concept of mutualism, in which two different species interact together to form multiplicity, the work becomes an embodiment of a rejection of hierarchy, linear chronology, and categorical organization, favoring instead concepts of a random systems of growth and propagation.

MC