We habitually think of the artist as a being shrouded in mystery, possessing a gift, a special talent, a special way of perceiving things and recreating their forms. We see in him an idol, the one we would like to be: most of the time, however, the artist does not see himself as such. Galvao does not consider himself to be an artist capable of creating a unique language in art that distinguishes him from others; he does not even seek in mathematics or geometries theses that would unveil to the eyes of the world what the artist himself, and therefore the idol, possesses.

No, Galvao has never sought the immortality of appearances. As the first time, opening his eyes, he perceived light, in his work he sought to "extract" it, to reproduce it, first on canvas and then on wood. It is light that drives him to be an artist, and if Galvao first saw light on the day of his birth, so he gives us the chance to meet light again every time we look at one of his works.

If so many traits define the artist as an individual who is often nervous, irascible, but nonetheless a creator of formidable works, the exception confirms the opposite. Here, then, is Galvao: a man artist and friend of humanity. The doors of his Freiburg studio are open to everyone: the curious, the outcast, the religious, even parrots. There everything is immersed in nature, the throbbing soul of his act. He looks at a log of wood, carves it and reinvents it, a body, a concave, convex form, protuberance, bumpy movement of rhythmic modulation.

Looking at his works we perceive cracks, crazing, rounded forms. We gently caress the wood with our fingertips and let our gaze slip to the pleasure of shadows and volumes.