Beatriz Milhazes, Rio de Janeiro / Brasil - pintura contemporânea

Avenida Brasil, 2003-04, acrílico sobre tela

Panamericano, 2004, acrílico sobre tela

Ouro branco, 2006, colagem sobre papel

Succulent eggplants, 1996, synthetic polymer paint on canvas

Nega Maluca, 2006, acrílico sobre tela

Nu azul, 1997, acrílico sobre tela

Chokito, 2006, colagem sobre papel

Pipoca Moderna, 2006, acrílico sobre tela

Sampa, 2005-06, acrílico sobre tela

The Sisters (As Irmãs), 2003, silkscreenon 638g Waterford paper

Beleza pura, 2006, acrílico sobre tela

Mariposa, 2004, acrílico sobre tela

O Sonho de José, 2003-04, acrílico sobre tela

Beatriz Ferreira Milhazes (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1960). Pintora, gravadora, ilustradora, professora. Formada em comunicação social pela Faculdade Hélio Alonso, no Rio de Janeiro em 1981, inicia-se em artes plásticas ao ingressar na Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage - EAV/Parque Lage em 1980, onde mais tarde leciona e coordena atividades culturais. Além da pintura dedica-se também a gravura, e a ilustração. De 1995 à 1996 cursa gravura em metal e linóleo no Atelier 78, com Solange Oliveira e Valério Rodrigues e em 1997 ilustra o livro As Mil e Uma Noites à Luz do Dia: Sherazade Conta Histórias Árabes, de Katia Canton. Beatriz Milhazes faz parte das exposições que caracterizam a Geração 80, grupo de artistas que buscam retomar a pintura em contraposição à vertente conceitual dos anos 1970, e tem por característica a pesquisa de novas técnicas e materiais. Sua obra faz referências ao barroco, à obra de Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973) e Burle Marx (1909-1994), à padrões ornamentais e à art deco, entre outras. Entre 1997 e 1998, é artista visitante em várias universidades dos Estados Unidos. A partir dos anos 1990, destaca-se em mostras internacionais nos Estados Unidos e Europa e integra acervos de museus como o MoMa, Guggenheim e Metropolitan em Nova York.

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Crítica:

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The clichés of Hispanic culture – carnival, Samba, joie de vivre resonate – are unobtrusively merged with symbols and thoughts of other times and cultures. Thus Milhazes achieves the coalescence of stylistic opposites and atmospheric ambivalences and creates "an overwhelming and seemingly irrational vitality"*.Her flowers undergo endless variations. One moment they are naturalistically painted, another moment they are abstractly transformed or only graphically suggested. While blossoms, flowers, circles, and coloured balls spill out of a visual centre, a seemingly inexhaustible variety and colourfulness fan out over the canvas. The flowers also enter numerous levels of visual depth. Parts of geometric or linear forms - like stripes, squares and rectangles - are closely interwoven, acting mostly as a background which itself is overlaid by other objects and forms, such as rings or flowers.The diverse patterns that cover the paintings should not be considered the subject but rather the medium of the works. The swirling arches and arabesques of blossoms, bows and balls visually refer to each other and let the eye circle around the image. The occasionally emerging objects, that are in most cases feminine and/or religious, for example pearls that can also be seen as rosaries, lose their reference through repetition and become just form. (...)

Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin

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Milhazes’s paintings are saturated with colour and loaded with designs loosely derived from flora and fauna motifs. Her sources range from native Brazilian popular culture and baroque religious art of the Americas to geometric abstraction and Op Art. She occupies a unique position between Western and Latin American traditions. Milhazes uses a technique similar to monotype or collage in her paintings where she builds up figurative elements gradually. Colour or ground is applied directly to the canvas with a brush while motifs are painted onto sheets of plastic which are later pressed onto the primed canvas, transferring the images. The accretion of paint results in a surface texture where some overlapping forms are fully present, while other earlier forms are partially obscured. The inherent imperfection of this process, in which images do not always transfer evenly or smoothly, simultaneously creates the impression of décollage and of images revealed when others are peeled away, in places exposing the under-drawing beneath. Recently, Milhazes has reintroduced collage into her repertoire and is attracted to the shiny, glittery surface of modern-day confectionary packaging. She is particularly drawn to chocolate wrappings which she incorporates in her work. The size and texture of these products in part determines the composition of each collage. Furthermore, the ornate calligraphy of the text on the wrappers, visible in may different languages, adds another conceptual and linguistic dimension to her work. Milhazes has titled her show at Stephen Friedman Gallery Joá, the name of a beach in Rio de Janeiro. The collages and paintings in the exhibition embrace her extensive artistic ancestry and allude to the tropical milieu of Brazil and the music and dance that epitomize the city and history of Rio de Janeiro. Milhazes has exhibited widely all over the world. In 2004 Milhazes had a solo exhibition at Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan. In the same year, Milhazes was commissioned to make a work for the façade of Selfridges Manchester Exchange Store. In 2003 Milhazes had a solo exhibition at Domaine de Kerguehennec-Centre d’Art Contemporain, Bignan, France. In the same year Milhazes represented Brazil in the Venice Biennale at the Brazilian pavilion. Recent group exhibitions include São Paulo Biennale, São Paulo, Brazil in 2004 and 2002 and Urgent Painting, Musee d’Art Moderne de La Ville de Paris, Paris in 2002. This year, Milhazes was selected for a special commission at Tate Modern Restaurant which will be on view through 2007. She has also recently completed an ambitious project at Gloucester Road underground station which was commissioned by Platform for Art. The project will run until through May 2006.

Stephen Friedman Gallery, London