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Indepth Arts News:
"Efrain Almeida: His First Retrospective Exhibition"
2001-04-30 until 2001-07-08
Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea
Santiago, ,
ES Spain
Brazil is a country which is being increasingly recognised artistically as a result of
its exceptional culture, which combines a deep traditional element with a high level
of aesthetic refinement. In this his first retrospective exhibition, Efrain Almeida
(Boa Viagem, Ceará, Brazil, 1964) is evidence of the capacity of Brazilian art to
link a specific cultural inheritance to the concerns and trends of contemporary
sculpture.
The influence of the traditional craftsmanship of the Brazilian Northwest on Efrain
Almeida can be clearly perceived. Having said this, his works are not mere votive
offerings or traditional Brazilian images. They contain elements reworked in a
contemporary fashion, based on the transformation of meaning and form. They are
remakes of Catholic images impregnated with Ceará's pantheistic element, of
popular beliefs, personal stories into which he places new material. Works which
evoke the harmony of things traditional and erudite, instinctive and calculated,
simple and sophisticated.
Here in the CGAC, Efrain Almeida presents us with a singular proposal insofar as
his work is concerned, intimately related to the city of Santiago, soul worship, the
miracles of the Apostle through not very spectacular pieces of work, far from the
present dominant trend towards large scale, where he works with open
suggestions, with possibilities of meaning. Pieces of work which, in spite of their
intimist scale, propose a global occupation of the space which plays host to them
and which invite the spectator to come closer, be an accomplice, so that the minor
details, the differences, can be revealed.
IMAGE:
Efrain Almeida
Casa das Ánimas, 2001
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