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ALBANO AFONSO
(SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, 1964)ALBANO AFONSO PRODUCES IN HIS WORKS A REFLECTION ON THE ART HISTORY TRADITION. HIS WORKS ARE STARTED FROM GENRES AND THEMES MAINLY DERIVED FROM THE HISTORY OF PAINTING, IN WHICH, NOT BY COINCIDENCE, THE ISSUE “LIGHT AND SHADOW” IS PRESENTED AS A CENTRAL ELEMENT [...] BRIGHTNESS, REFLECTION AND REFRACTION BECOME THE OBJECT OF STUDY AND SUBJECT OF THE WORKS. In the series Crystallization of the landscape, photographs of landscapes, between parks, closed forests and historical images, crystallize. These are images worked digitally by the artist to be converted into geometry and color. It is as if the light hitting by nature took shape and materialized in masses of colored crystals, which sometimes present themselves subtly [...] There is no more possible perspective or illusion of access. The landscape that was once permeable is now solid matter.
Douglas de Freitas. Albano Afonso: Luz encarnada em corpo/corpo evanescido em luz. Casa Bandeirante, São Paulo. 2018 -
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VÂNIA MIGNONE
(CAMPINAS, BRAZIL, 1967)Vânia Mignone is one of the most impactful artists of her generation. One of the recurrent subjects in her paintings is the subtlety and complexity of the relationships of everyday life, which she densifies, transforming them into a creative escape from standardized behaviors. Through sophisticated and mysterious fictional interplays of solitary figures, words, plants and animals, the artist shares what is still sublime in human existence.
Some things catch on fire, circuses catch on fire, her images configure common situations with precise metaphors that drift in landscapes of uncertain surfaces, with oscillating borders between the bodies and the objects. It seems that Vânia wants to tell us everything, with her painting of gestures and purposefully dense coverings, which also know the exact moment when they should stop, to signalize what matters.
Danillo Villa, 2022
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Plúmula, 2022
FERNANDA GALVÃO
(SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, 1994)Fernanda Galvão'S artistic practice stems from her relationship with landscape, nature and science fiction references – both from literature and cinematography. From her experience observing elements of nature, she thinks about the construction of fictitious landscapes and ecosystems. Regardless of the medium, she sets out by building particular atmospheres that propose a new universe with different rules, spatiality and temporal linearity. Galvão’s artistic focus is on painting, but she also works with films, installations and sculptures.
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ANTONIO HENRIQUE AMARAL
(SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, 1935 - 2015)Beginning in the 1980s and up to the end of his life in 2015, Amaral combined drawing and painting in a back-and-forth creative movement in which no theme or form was treated as taboo. There were deliriums of sexuality, with anatomies multiplied in neurotic landscapes; combinations of torsos juxtaposed in fullnesses and emptinesses that could be either erotic or morbid; theater stages occupied by signs of violence and power; oversized and absurdly red hearts; objects that seem to move like animals; beings subjectivized as fragments of a nameless space-time. In these exercises of the imagination, the artist got the opportunity to push his handling of shadowings and relationships of chiaroscuro to the state of paroxysm. He was also able to explore rare chromatic combinations, and sometimes vibrant and diversified palettes that refer to Tarsila’s most colorful works.
When one observes Antonio Henrique Amaral’s oeuvre as a whole it is plausible to think of it as a bestiary expanded in time and space: a succession of forms and figures that defy human identification and its capacity for communication, or, in a complementary way, a landscape of inanimate objects that he imbues with an empathic identification. There is still much to discover and debate about in his work, especially now, when at every point and place there is a search for examples of artworks able to resist not only the authoritarian projects now underway, but also the normativities that restrict the understanding of the nature of desire, sexuality and communication.
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Ladrillo invención X, 2022
Max Gómez Canle
(BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, 1972)As a hiker, a traveling painter, who reaches a continent and sets out to depict: how this place can be seen, what can be seen from this place, and how its borders are. And asks himself: how can it be painted?
In Ladrillo invención, Max works with Frans Post's landscapes, copying, repainting and sandind them. The artist makes these first representations of the American landscape imitating forces involved in nature, deposition and erosion. The layers of oil paint turn hyper thin and the linen grain blooms. Max imagines a repertoire of possible constructions to inhabit these spaces.
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Monument series, 2020
NINO CAIS
(SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, 1969)NINO CAIS HAS POSSIBLY ONE OF THE MOST ASSORTED PRODUCTIONS IN BRAZILIAN CONTEMPORARY ART, NOT ONLY IN TERMS OF MATERIALS – FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, DRAWINGS AND COLLAGES TO SCULPTURES, VIDEOS AND GARMENTS –, BUT ALSO BECAUSE OF ITS WIDE SCOPE OF POETIC AND NARRATIVE DISCOURSES. CREATES AN INTERMEDIATE UNIVERSE BETWEEN THE EVERYDAY WORLD, WHICH PROVIDES THE RAW MATERIAL FOR THE WORKS, AND A FANCIFUL ENVIRONMENT, WITH ITS FICTIONAL ROOTS BASED ON LITERATURE, THEATRE AND FINE ARTS. NINO CAIS CUTS, PASTES, SEWS, DRAWS, IS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE ARTWORK, IS CHARACTER AND AUTHOR.
Tadeu Chiarelli. Whitin the same Nino. Paço das Artes, São Paulo. 2014
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terra terra, 2022
IVAN GRILO
(ITATIBA, BRAZIL, 1986)"I look at "terra terra" as a writing path. I develop this linear combination of elements on the walls of the studio in exactly the same way I write. The expression "terra terra" from a Venetian origin or the Portuguese variation "terra-a-terra" are deeply linked to the simple character, to the pragmatic, to the possibility field, the place where it is possible to actually build something. And from that comes this dubious writing that begins with an agricultural tool, which is very similar to a weapon. A stick that could hold that spear, as well as raise a flag, if it were not so fragile. A ragged rag that has served me as the basis for recordings with heat, and it could be this flag that is frailly raised. There is also a single image, taken from the latest records of the book "Canudos" as a protected/promised land, which here is much more in favor of the ideal of a safe place and the possibility of set up a new rule, than an actual historical connection. Finally, as a great reticence at the end of the sentence, a small angle in the wood "freijó", a stretch of frame, the future, the unfinished. As one who follows in writing, as one who insists on construction, as one who follows in the attempt of a new path..."
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