Antonio Bandeira

Retrospective exhibition brings together a set of about 70 works - canvases, gouaches and watercolors -, covering different moments of his artistic production, from the first figurative paintings to the large screens of dense plots and drips of the last years, and has its genesis in the Antonio Bandeira: a life-friendly abstractionist, held at Espaço Cultural Unifor, Fortaleza, from August to December 2017. Born in Fortaleza on May 26, 1922, Antonio Bandeira managed to follow an unusual path in the scope of Brazilian art. Independent artist in the midst of the local influences of his time - even if extremely active in his social environment - it was not in search of the stylistic and geographical regionalisms that sometimes fed artists of his generation. He remained on the sidelines of schools and styles, never lending his name to the declarations of aesthetic faith that were in vogue at that time. Demanding and methodical, defined by his peers as a serious, laconic artist with a monastic casmurriceʺ, he worked diligently throughout his life, leaving us with an amazing production not only for its quality and sensitivity, but also for its volume. In addition, he devoted special attention to his own persona, feeding myths and narratives about his biography and cultivating his image, thus creating a character that often aroused as much interest as his work. Traces, colors, plots, stains and splashes, apparently abstract, effectively stamp, in the artist's words, landscapes, seascapes, trees, seaports, cities, in short, travel notes. I start from realism and then I trim the branch until I reach the point that my sensitivity demands. [ ] Nature was and always will be my granary ʺ. This joyful commitment to life guided his approach and assimilation of the international language of abstract art. As Ferreira Gullar would summarize, Bandeira used the possibilities of the new language to express his loving relationship with the reality he lived and the reality he had livedʺ.