Beatriz Milhazes

The ornamental and brightly coloured works of Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes (b. 1960) call diverse references from traditional arabesques, to both Brazilian Baroque and Brazilian Modernism to Henri Matisse's papiers découpés to mind. Influenced by the tropical climate and vegetation of her home country as well as by the urban vibe of cities like Rio de Janeiro, Milhazes combines traditional imagery and cultural clichés with plain geometric forms and accurate structured composition, creating dynamical and unexpected works. Although painting forms a major part of her œuvre since the beginning of her career, Milhazes constantly extends her work and includes different media like textiles, wrappers, collages or delicate mobiles consisting of mirroring balls, chains and flowers.

‘Despite the vividness of her colors and compositions, a relative slowness is characteristic of Milhazes' working method, and it is this measured rhythm which enables her to cover increasingly vast distances in time as in space. The Brazil that concerns her is not just that of the morning newspapers and the news on TV Globo. Her Brazil goes right back to the sixteenth century and even earlier. And her country interests her all the more for bearing the marks of multiple cross-cultural currents. For us non-Brazilians, from a distance, it is a mythical country, that of a successful racial diversity, one where economic expansion has not erased extreme social differences, but which is waging a struggle against extreme poverty. For the Brazilian artist, it is history made real.’

Frédéric Paul, In China, you must know, the Emperor is a Chinaman, and all whom he has about him are Chinamen too in Beatriz Milhazes: Snow in the Tropics, Fondation Beyeler and Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, 2011