1- Where did you born? And what is your academic training?
I'm Vital Barbosa, I was born in the city of Recife (PE), land of frevo and maracatu, and I was raised in Olinda (PE). Today I am pleased to live in São Luís (MA), city of tiles, and Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
My academic background is different from what I do in the arts. In art, I am self-taught. No near future, to strengthen my knowledge, I intend to go to college with a focus on the arts, such as Fine Arts (SP) or Panamericana School of Art and Design (SP).
2- How and when you give your first contact with the Arts?
My contact with arts is since I was a child. I studied at Colégio São Bento de Olinda (PE), and I can say that it was where I had my first contact. At school I did theater, painting and even took the risk of participating in the Gregorian Singing Choir, where I did a test with Father Paulo and right on the first note he sent me back to play football (lol). But only in 2017, that I started showing my art to a wider audience, through social networks. That was when I was discovered by a plastic artist from Pernambuco, who liked my work and helped spread it until I got to an art curator, in Paris. From there, I started to develop my work more, and disseminating them to specific groups of visual artists. Making my work more and more known and appreciated.
3- How did you find this gift?
Well, the discovery or emergence of this gift occurred in a natural way. I always liked to paint, and between one executive job and another, used painting as a hobby. Until I started studying, Search, develop techniques, and delve into the subject, always stimulating my creative side. I often say that I am still discovering this gift, therefore, I believe that in the future I will graduate in visual arts.
4- What are your main influences?
My main influences are my family (who says that since I was a kid “I make art” (laughs)), my wife and the folkloric manifestations, in particular, frevo, with your colors, rhythms and movements. And in the course of my development, human feelings, where expressed through dashes, colors, shadows and forms, always influenced by God.
5- What materials do you use in your works?
The materials are diverse, I use whatever is within my reach. I believe that art, respecting everything that has already been built and said in the history of art, including within the conservative segment of art, is all that I can transform and express through creativity or inspiration. Currently, as a good scholar that I am and providing opportunities for the advancement of technologies, I'm a digital painting enthusiast.
6- What is your creative process itself? What inspires you?
My creative process is closely linked to my state of mind. For example, if I am in a low mood I have a natural tendency, I don't know if it happens to other artists, to paint cooler and darker colors. When I'm in high spirits, the trend is for cheerful colors, hot colors. And when I'm reflective I let the colors express my feelings.
Now, what stimulates me to work is music, and be in a harmonious environment, surrounded by things I like.
7- When you started effectively to produce or create your works?
My moment of reunion with art, effectively, started in 2016. It was when I went through a transition period in relation to my career and was looking for a way to express myself, where I could vent as best I could, without hurting anyone, because of my frustrations and thoughts.
I came from a humble family, and even though I was born in a very strong cultural cradle, I had certain natural obstacles, because it was necessary to produce to help the family nucleus. At the time, the whole family effort was directed towards education in order to have a good job. So, after I grew up and worked a lot, in 2016, with the support of my wife, I gradually started trying to achieve a dream I had since I was a child, which is to live from art. With adult rights and duties, but doing what makes me happy.
8- Art is an intellectual production exquisite, where emotions are embedded in the context of creation, but in art history, we see that many artists are derived from other, following technical and artistic movements through time, you own any model or influence of any artist? Who would be?
I have some artists who influenced me and influence me, ranging from cubism to urban art, passing through popular art in Brazil. Highlighted, are: Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Gone down (Euclides Francisco Amâncio), Romero Brito, Eduardo Cobra.
9- What does art mean to you? If you were to summarize in a few words the meaning of Arts in your life…
In short, Art is a refreshment of the human soul.
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10- What techniques do you use to express their ideas, feelings and perceptions about the world? (Whether it is through painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, photography… or uses several techniques in order to make a mix of different art forms).
Today, work using the technique known as mixed art. Thus, I express my ideas and creativity in various ways, as long as you have the materials on hand.
11- Every artist has his mentor, that person who you have mirrored, you encouraged and inspired you to follow this career, going ahead and taking your dreams the other expression levels, who this person is and how it introduced you in the art world?
As I said earlier, I came from a family of simple origin, where we needed to work to earn a living. And, when i got married in 2007, with the support of my wife, and with a lot of work and dedication, I was redirecting my professional activities until I managed to realize my dream of focusing all my potential to 100% to the universe of the arts, which is the area I intend to retire. Thus, I can say that whoever inspired and encouraged me to pursue an artistic career, it was my wife, Cintia Lins Barbosa, who is always by my side. Now, in professional matters, I usually honor four people who contributed to the dissemination of my work, introducing me to the world the arts. Are they:
– Michel Angelim - Design responsible for my digital communication;
– Heloiza Azevedo - Art Commissioner and Cultural Producer (Portugal);
– Dulce Serra - Curator of the MPMA Cultural Space;
– Francisco Colombo – Filmmaker and Curator of the MPMA Cultural Space;
And concluding, the most important mentor, that is God. Which is my Divine support, my foundation.
12- You have another activity beyond art? You teaches classes, lectures etc.?
I've worked from car washer to partner in a car shop. I also worked as a business consultant for large companies, medium and small businesses. After, developed activities within the design, focusing on product design and graphic design, in order to gradually make a full transition to the visual arts. Today I am dedicated to the visual arts, taking advantage of the opportunities that appear, such as exhibitions, networking scope, business partnership, lectures, interviews, or even teach short courses.
13- Its main national and international exhibitions, and your awards?
Well, as i already mentioned, I only started to expose myself from 2016, with the help of social networks. In 2017, I received my first invitation to participate in an exhibition, through the Heloiza Azevedo. Exposure in Montmartre Gallery, in Teresina (PI), da Gina Castelo Branco. So that now, unfortunately in the same period of the exhibition, my father passed away and due to my grief I was unable to participate in this action, it would be a festive action, commemorative, and I had to decline. But I received, the Heloiza, a new invitation to exhibit. This time, everything worked, being held in 2019, in Belo Horizonte (MG), at Gilda Queiroz's Gallery. However, before that I was invited to exhibit at Cultural Center of the Public Ministry of Maranhão, by Curator Dulce Serra, being successful too. To 2020, had already triggered to participate in exhibitions in Portugal, in the month of September; in Spain, in October; and in France, in November. However, because of the pandemic everything was stand by, that same year he was affected by the covid. Anyway… already passed, but care and prevention remain. Now, I do not stop participating in virtual exhibitions. I'm going to my third virtual exhibition, the latter being invited by an artist, poet, arts columnist, promoter of art and culture, called, A person Edmundo Rafael de Araújo Cavalcanti (Edmundo Cavalcanti) special that I have affection and admiration. Although I don't know him personally, I feel the generosity in helping and promoting new artists in him.
Thus, the exhibitions were:
1) Traces, Colors and Shadow - Location: Cultural Center of the Public Ministry of Maranhão, St. Louis (MA) – April, 2019. (solo exhibition);
2) Art Played and Art That Touches - Local: Gilda Queiroz Gallery, Belo Horizonte (MG), Brazil - June 2019. (collective exhibition);
3) Arte é Vida - Local: Raphael Art Gallery Virtual, Brasil – September, 2020. (collective exhibition);
4) Art without limits – Local: Raphael Art Gallery Virtual, Brazil - December, 2020. (collective exhibition);
As for the awards, you could say that they were virtual, even because of the pandemic. Highlighted is the cover of POESIA Revista, 6º Edition, Rio de Janeiro (RJ), May 2020. (www.revistapoesia.com).
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14- Your plans for the future?
Well, my plans for the future, I will put them part of them in a dream, because if we don't dream, I believe that we do not carry out. So the plans, post-pandemic, are:
– Make an exhibition, in Recife (PE), honoring my home state;
– Hold international exhibitions that were held in stand by and new invitations I received, as for example, exhibit in Toronto, Canada and the city of Porto, in Portugal, at Joaquim Fonseca's gallery;
– no future (in the long run), move with my family to Minas Gerais, living near Belo Horizonte, to get closer to a cosmopolitan environment and the Rio-São Paulo axis.
15- In your opinion what is the future of Brazilian art and its artists? (in the general context) and why so many artists are giving preference to show their work in international exhibitions despite high costs?
That's a tricky question, but necessary. I will ask permission to say a maxim, that is from the leaders of the leaders, because I don't know anyone bigger than him, that is Jesus. Jesus said: "House saint does not work miracles".
Following this maxim, I understand that artists need to seek international recognition first to be valued in the domestic market. It is as if it needs an endorsement from abroad… I also understand that we live in an emerging country, where access to art is limited for some, and they are not yet mature enough to bring the spotlight to our country. Yet, believe in the future of Brazilian art and its artists, after all I am one of them. It is in Brazil that I live and that I intend to continue living, taking my livelihood and my family, through Art. And as a good Brazilian I am, I never give up. We are a peaceful people, creative, and blessed by God. I believe in Brazil, it is a promising country. I'm a fan of Brazilian artists and especially visual artists. I recently launched the hashtag #seguimosjuntosnaarte, with the aim of honoring each other's work.
Social Media:
WebSite: vitalbarbosa.com.br
Facebook: @vitalbarosa
Instagram: @ vitalbarbosa.artistavisual
THE IMMINENT ABSTRACTION IN THE PAINTING OF VITAL BARBOSA
Digital paintings by Vital Barbosa draw attention not only for the impacting strength and beauty emanating, but also for two other aspects that instigate our gaze. The first, concerns the richness of the various effects of the brushstrokes that, as, texture and transparency, reveal themselves to belong both to the artist's spirit and to the various techniques that may be used.
The second aspect refers to the way in which abstraction conquers a space, even in the midst of figuration. Generally, it is the abstract paintings that lead the eye to seek or form images, through their chromatic stains or loose and uncompromised strokes with the shape of the objects. The paintings of Vital Barbosa, on the other hand, offer the opposite movement: now it will be the figured images that will take the look to the abstraction. By covering almost the entire space of the plane, as if they were images “photographed” very close to the camera, confer a cellular approach to the technique developed, making its components very visible, who come to adopt individual existence.
A painting "Black Navigator", for example, presents an interesting composition of lines, that paralyzes the viewer. Along with the lines, the mist that surrounds the image, leads the gaze to the constant exchange between the figure and its compositional elements, offering, and, the possibility of the spectator momentarily deconstructing the object.
In the paintings with the female faces half covered with flowers, the eye is invited to come even closer, and, from there, reveals a chromatic abstract, whose colors and textures flood the eye with intensity.
Now, abstract painting itself, offered by the artist, ends by showing every detail of a painting made on canvas, from the texture of the fabric, the attractive reliefs, until the paint dripped. A digital painting that essentially resembles conventional painting. Thereby, Vital Barbosa puts before us a charming phenomenon: the painting imitating the painting itself, and, evidently, not without appropriating the same perceptions inherent to the pictorial.
Text: Ana Mondini
Social networks:
Instagram: @anamondinigaleriavirtual / Facebook: @ anamondini.galeriavirtual
Instagram: @anamondiniart / Facebook: @anamondiniart
Youtube: @Ana Mondini – Interview with Artists & Related
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EDMUNDO CAVALCANTI
São Paulo – Brasil
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Columnist at Website Obras de Arte
E-mail: cavalcanti.edmundo@gmail.com