Angélica Pedroso
Angélica Pedroso and her loving giants
Antonio Carlos Abdalla | curator
In a first encounter with the work of Angélica Pedroso, something disturbs and impresses us. It is the physical dimension of her paintings that impacts us first. In her studio, near the city of São Paulo, Brazil, the walls are covered by gigantic images – reminding us somewhat of medieval churches and castles, with their walls lined by tapestry to warm and beautify the spaces.
The images on the walls seem to watch us over like alert observers. They appear to inhabit an “Olympus of Orixás”, spiritual conveyors and protectors, an army of corsairs, threatening and seductive at the same time. It’s comforting to feel all these immense beings sheltering us in under their protection and caring tenderness.
The second thing to impact us is the colorfulness of it all.
Angélica – going against the current fever of whites and neutral colors that nowadays imposes itself as a rule – has no qualms about the use of colors. The colors are raw, intense and vibrant, a bit like the personality of the artist herself. Her use of colors throw us back to Fauvism, something that nowadays is so rare to see.
The created ensemble is mesmerizing and qualifies Angélica as an artist of exception, someone who follows a very personal path. It’s a welcome surprise to be part of and share in her enchanted world of loving giants.
Angélica and the Feminine
George Bradford | curator
When the work of Angelica Pedroso came to my attention I realized she is not just an artist with an amount of talent but also maturity.
Some influences of either Chagall or Matisse are evident, but these serve only as advantages to her definitely original and personal expression. In a singular fashion Angelica Pedroso captures allusions to sensuality – the mysterious feminine. It is her love for life and her appreciation for every fleeting moment that makes her art so vibrant and rich in vitality.
Edgard Reymann | journalist
There’s much contemporaneity in Angelica Pedroso’s work. Life in the “global village” brings all deities and beliefs together, as much as we can easily talk to our neighbor or someone in China. The four elements work together to create the means for these connections. Just like a butterfly somewhere in Asia may be responsible for a storm in South America, Angelica’s paintings may be responsible for creating connections among millions of people all over the world.
Art is a hobby. Right?
Art is a hobby, as much as a surgeon performing open-heart surgery is indulging in his favorite hobby.
After the first cut, after the first squirt of blood, there's no turning back. There are no Undo's.
A writer facing a blank page may feel agony and uncertainty. But she knows that anything she does can be undone, can be erased and started anew. A painter like Angélica Pedroso may feel the same anxiety facing a white canvas, but once brush touches surface, something bigger starts to happen. And so often it's not exactly pleasant. The surgeon knows exactly what he needs to do at every step and moment. The Artist doesn't. The Artist has to cut herself first, a mysterious act of self-imolation is required, paint and blood are not that different. Whatever is added to the canvas, is subtracted from the Artist. After the completion of a great work, the Artist is always less.
In a world that by now has commodified nearly every single aspect of human life, Death, Sex, and Art are our last remaining connections with Life. All three, events of the body and not of the mind; all three wrapped in fear, pleasure, desperation, longing and pain. Of the three, only Art is not biologically ordained. And Art is suffering and agony, it's an unceasing violent struggle to wrench light out of the darkness that surrounds us and will always be.
So, why Art?!
The African Queen recedes into darkness, her home, as a curtain of suffering descends upon our vision. It's the Artist, in her swift stroke, that brings the submerged Feminine back to our framed light. There it stays, now nearly harmless, but still a small reminder of what is and has been all along.
The Feminine is. The Masculine (just) happens.
This is very close to William Blake's
Eternity is in Love with the Productions of Time.
Actually, they are saying the same thing.
