Clarice Gonçalves

About

1985, Brasilia - DF, Brazil

Clarice Gonçalves’ works sublimate Brasília. All the concrete of the city’s modernist architecture is translated in the immensity of the sky in its blue, orange, yellow, pink, ochre palettes; in the immensity of the clouds that transit the spaces of the vast sky just like people transit the empty spaces of the city; in the immensity partaken by this people who have in a multicolored, contemplation-inviting sky much more than a sea.
The painter is part of a generation of artists that are breaking new ground in Brasília and awaking for the world. Better yet—a group for whom the world awakes. Gifted with a relation with space much different from that the urbanites from other cities have, this generation draws to the capital of Brazil the attention that Brasília’s rock music once has attracted.
Clarice is one of the artists in this generation that transmits an incomparable lightness in her regard upon the feminine. Part of the artist’s creative process starts through a survey of images on the internet, which places her at the top of the contemporaneity trend: casting her gaze and interpretation on images that are not necessarily in her context, and appropriating them with the unmistakable mark and style of Clarice Gonçalves. This style is composed of strong strokes, thus creating lots of texture, and of the fluid stains, denoting a counterpoint of much lightness. Another peculiarity when it comes to her workspace is the diversity of canvas’ formats—she does not stop at the monotony of the straight line, but rather asserts her autonomy and questions all the aspects of the painting. Full of density, the works’ titles are brief poetic narratives of thought, stay clear from the obvious, and invite—better to say, incite—the onlooker to think beyond the static. The best definition of the recurrent portrayed stare of Clarice’s women, always capturing the attention, is rightfully the title of one work of hers: the surreptitious slant of unsettling stares [o soslaio furtivo de olhares inquietadores]. It is hard to be a mere spectator of her portrays and not feel like a witness of something that may not be the same a few moments later, due to a feeling of familiarity that borderlines a déjà vu, a rare, subtle feature which gives us a sensation of intimacy with the scene represented, as if the painting gathered from each of us something from our personal history.

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Location: Taguatinga, DF, Brazil
Website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/claricelima/
http://www.claricegoncaves.blogspot.com
http://cargocollective.com/cla

Work

The cloud of paintings created by Clarice Gonçalves condenses on the feminine. This is a constant theme in her works; constantly maturing, leading the painter to revisit a same topic over and over, without depletion. Hotel Galeria welcomes the painter in their space, where, in the disposition of paintings, a neighboring of images is seen. This disposition allows for perceiving that the merging of works takes place both in its singularity, by the power of each one of its elements, and in its collectiveness, which stirs up new interpretations of this corpus.

Another important element in the unusual montage for painting is time, which re-signifies the work. The artist brings the experience of her workplace, where she lives with both old and recent works. In this space, Clarice is used to leaving a painting with its back turned to viewing and to the world, aiming to reach further depths and not only an ephemeral feeling. Thus the obsession for the final product is allayed and, in a suspension of the self, she admires her production. At that moment she sets up the stage for resolving the conflict for acceptance between creator and creature.

The artist treats her paintings with precise strokes, color surfaces, and a palette of her own to portray the world, but, in order to create textures in the images, she makes use of diluted paints, to the point of making them flow on the canvas. She is a figurative painter who counterpoints to the rigor of photographic realism. The artist’s imagetic collection is composed of photos; the plasticity draws her away from the obligation of keeping up with photographic realism and standard formats that were institutionalized by painting’s tradition. Apropos, her way of naming her works also stays clear of clichés; these titles can be seen as small narratives that fire the imagination, and make up another verse of Clarice Gonçalves’ imagetic poetry.

Thais Catunda
… Read More

Education