EXPO Arte SP – 7th Edition & Gama’s Artworks presented

The Expo Arte SP is a new independent artists event that usually happens every two months. The event purpose is to promote a habitual cultural network between citizens and national contemporary art production, giving to people the opportunity to talk with the artists, appreciate new art series, tendencies, proposals, collabs, new creative process and materials that have been explored. The major positive point of such event is that you don’t need to wait a year to check out what is going on on art scene, once you can stay tuned every 60 days or less. Every edition happens in a different local, to achieve different urban groups and audience.

The event is composed of many relationships layers: audience and contemporary art scene, audience and artists, artists and galleries, customers and artists, artists and artists, basically, art market, audience, and the contact with other artists are the golden tickets exchanged there.

The 7th Edition happened during the days 17th and 18th of August, 2019, between 11 am and 7 pm (GMT-3), in São Paulo city (SP State), Rua Oscar Freire, 702. Oscar Freire Street is located on the most cultural and popular hotspot area, considering that by subway you’re just one to two stations from Paulista Avenue, where the most prestigious cultural spaces and museums from the city are.

It is impressive how they are successfully promoting such impact on cultural Brazilian scene with such rapidity. However, the event has some structural issues in terms of general publicity or, divulgation, the event reliability considering that no contracts or certificates of participation are provided to artists, and finally, it may be important to add, the mounting team support to the artists considering expography and caution with the art pieces. All these issues are completely reasonable, considering that the event hasn’t completed the 1-year foundation.

Participating in such an event was for me an experiment of how works another part of art scene possibilities in Brazil. Once my priorities have been cultural spaces such as universities, museums, cultural institutes, or collective and individual exhibitions that are completely different universes from the art fairs that are part of the art market. I’ve learned a lot on Expo Arte SP from the feedback about my work. People who understand from art market gave me priceless advice, and with no doubt, those were the precious points on that event, personally speaking.

The same way I can analyse the event structure issues, I am now able to analyse deep mistakes that I wasn’t aware during the Expo Art SP. Conclusively on this topic, If you are reading this and you are an emergent artist or independent artist, I have an advice for you: If you have any doubts about how does really works art fairs, and if you’re not completely secure of your professional choices between which pathway will you focus on, in terms of where are you going to exhibit or sell your work, or moreover, who compose your audience, the best way to come to a conclusion is having your own experience.

Many great artists have advised my career and I was never truly satisfied by so many perspectives and conclusions, opinions and strategies, even though I am really thankful for having the opportunity of learning from wise professionals but just now that I have been able to live another possibility that I know what it is, how does it works, and the pros and cons.
The art world is vast. The audience changes by local, by event, by year, by country, by media, by the artists current production and so go on. It is a complex set of habitats. It is essential to explore your possibilities and to be conscient on many fundamental topics that define most of your performance on the art scene. They are certainly decisive to archive your goals, which basically means to be constantly learning how to improve your strategies and process by analysing your experience and always been open to listening to your pairs advises or critics on your work.

Now I would like to present you which artworks have composed the Expo Arte SP 7th Edition. Unfortunately, many of my artworks weren’t available to be an exhibit or even for sale, due to other current or further exhibitions from 2019 to 2020. The artworks that were part of the Expo Arte SP were mainly small or pieces painted from 2016 to 2019. Most of them do not take part in my updated portfolio, so it will be great to register them somewhere so that it seems a great opportunity to talk a bit more about them too.

”Your Dreams” is one of five oil paintings presented on Expo Arte SP, and was also the most wanted. I’ve counted at least 15 to 20 people who stopped in front of ”her” and appreciated the canvas with evident curiosity and I had the honour to talk to them about the work. A remarkable phenomenon on visual arts: People change when they feel that they had perceived what the artwork is about when they understand part of my concept on it. Wasn’t important to let them know that Your Dreams was in many exhibitions before and it was the first time it was available for sale. What was important was to tell them the symbolism, the metaphors, ask them what they had in mind before listening to my explanation.

The canvas ” Your Dreams” was the first from three pieces of my very first completed conceptual and interdisciplinary art series, which the most know piece is that was published on Average Art Magazine and A5 Magazine in 2019, ”Microverse timeless into Flesh” from 2017. The second piece of the series is ”Predations Laws” which was sold on 2018. ”Your Dreams” counts with the most poisoning mushrooms in the world, much of my time during the production of this piece was spent on botanic research supported by philosophical issues investigations, much on Schopenhauer and Husserl readings.

”Nature Spirit” was the second piece with most viewers and that had received more attention from the audience in comparison to the other pieces exposed on Gama’s space. I bet you hadn’t seen the woman portrait at first. This piece has two compositions. The first is the tension between two horses in battle. The theme of this painting is native resistance to the invaders on XVI Century on Brazil. And the second composition is Mother Nature portrait, a native woman portrait in fact. It is built with the first composition layer. If you find it out, congratulations, you are probably a very sensitive observer. This piece was painted over a wood plaque that I have found on the street, by the way.

”Whisky and sorrow” was the third of five paintings presented on Expo Arte SP. It was curious how many times people asked if this painting was my first or first than the others because they felt it was extremely academic. Although what is considered ”fully academic” in aesthetic terms, isn’t necessarily an introduction to more ”modern” aesthetic art. ”Whisky and Sorrow” is inspired by dutch symbolism conceptual basis, the still nature that brings emotional reflection about humanity and identity. Happily, I was able to explain to them this, and one more time, they were surprisingly into the whole conceptual structure and proposal afterwards.

”Mazeppa’s death” is one of my favourite canvas on current days from my portfolio. People reception to Mazeppa’s was just as my impression on Delacroix’s painting: something mystic about it, a halo of myth and storytelling. And in fact, it is all about antique stories. Mazeppa’s tale is quite dramatic, so my rereading. The horse is running above the sky, that compose the sea and the own hose. This canvas is about death transition, spiritually lost of personal identity to go back to stardust, to the natural flesh in a surreal representation of inversion of rationality. Delacroix is one of my favourite masters of painting justly by its compositional strength and intensive expression presented on every single organic thing that takes part in his works.

”A Memory of youth” version 1 wasn’t for sale but was there to get people in touch with the new series Yeats & Y. I already made a review on Yeats & Y. The version II of this canvas was sold last week. The canvas is also inspired by Austria landscapes, one of my particular memories of youth.

2018 was the year which the watercolour experiments started. I had a natural conflict with the watercolour technique, which requires attention, some study of the material and the surface, it is really easy to commit a decisive mistake when you’re adventuring in watercolour. During 2018, living in Germany, the problem of taking the canvas outside to the mountains or whereas pressurized me to find an alternative technique to Plein Air painting. Spring in Europe is stunning. The golden hills and the tiny colourful flowers and shades of green make you perplexed. For me, born in a Tropical Country, when nature makes you feel breathtaking, that is the call to paint it. Golden Spring was the second watercolour painted during the German spring season, on Heidelberg’s countryside.

From my favourite spot in Heidelberg, the perfect place on Philosophen Weg to appreciate the Heidelberg Castle, I painted my first watercolour in a Plein Air style. Maybe next year another painting from the very same stop can be done.

I’ve never been to Afrika or Iceland, but I do have friends who were there. And they got these magnificent descriptions of the landscapes, pictures and impressions from these places. I was just addicted to painting these places around the world with a certain simplicity, testing the colours and their effects, principally the pigments reactions and resistance to mixings and solubility. Must say that visiting places where’s possible to ”watch” Aurora’s is one of my biggest dreams. Probably a whole new art series would be created from such travels. The watercolours weren’t big surprises for the audience of Expo Arte SP (except by the Swans) but still, it is always good to explain the how’s and when’s.

Once I’ve discovered the potential of watercolour hues, every sunlight instantly turned out in ” How to create such natural shadow with watercolours”. On the first travel to Switzerland, I saw this church in breaking the contrast between the blueish zone of the mountains and the golden yards surrounded by dark green flora. The shadows on the church’s architecture created by the sunlight intensity were in my mind during months. One day, already back to Brazil I’ve finally had time and patience to paint that particular scene from the south part of Switzerland.

Austria again. Between the mountains during winter, those graceful swans were peacefully swimming on Halltatt’s lake. This was my first realistic painting using watercolours, one year after ”Heidelberg Castle”. With ”Swans”, I finally feel confident enough to start an art series after many material studies and technique improvement.

V.