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  1. Antonio de Olinda

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    Antonio de Olinda was born in 1966 as Antonio José dos Santos, the youngest of nine siblings. He grew up in Olinda a small town on the northeast coast of Brazil. Inspired by the surrounding rich culture and nature, Olinda began artmaking at a young age. He was introduced to craft and storytelling when he started working at Mamulengo, a well-known puppet theatre in Pernambuco, East Brazil. He also worked as an assistant to the painter, Roberto Lúcio.

     

    In 1984, Olinda participated in a group exhibition, marking the beginning of his career as an artist. Three years later, he received a prestigious award from the Salão das Artes de Pernambuco. He has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Olinda and Jacques Ardies Gallery in Sao Paulo. Through the energetic use of vibrant colors and expressive brush strokes, Olinda depicts the social chronicle and popular culture of his beloved native land.

     

    While working as a painter, Olinda continued in theatre and film as a Mamulengueiro, puppeteer, carnival artist, cultural producer, scenographer, and art director. Notably, Olinda created props for the scenography of the films Baile Perfumado (1996) by Lírio Ferreira and Paulo Caldas, an icon of the revival of Pernambuco cinema. Furthermore, he directed the short films Cultura popular da Ilha ao Continente (2005) and Maria do samba (2009), in addition to heading the art of O homem da mata (2004).

     

    Olinda died from kidney failure in 2015. Though his life was short, the joy and vitality of his work continue to inspire people around the world.

  2. Abel Perez

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    Abel Perez paints his love of the town, like his fellow artist Benito Ortiz, also from the city of Trinidad in Cuba. However, unlike Ortiz, he goes beyond the history of Trinidad to explore the history and geography of the entire island and even beyond. He does this with bright colors, dotted textures, and often very busy, crowded canvases. Of short stature and mirthful, high energy, Abel is one of Cuba’s most beloved folk artists. He is 94 years old and still painting at his home in Trinidad.

  3. Conchita Infante

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    Conchita Infante is a housewife, mother, and grandmother. She is also a spirited and passionate woman and artist who has been painting for many years. Conchita paints memories of her life which has been full of loving relationships and the normal ups and downs of family life.

  4. Jose Fuster

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    José Rodríguez Fuster (born August 1946, Villa Clara, Cuba) is a Cuban naïve artist specializing in ceramics, painting, drawing, engraving, and graphic design.
    From 1963 he studied at the Escuela Nacional de Instructores de Arte in Havana. As a professional, he was comissary of several exhibitions and was a member of the Cuban Association of artist and craftsmen (ACAA).

    Fuster did several solo exhibitions of his work, including Acuarelas y dibujos. Alegría de vivir in 1967, which traveled to several galleries in Havana. Drawings and ceramics was shown in 1976 at the Opera Theater Hall in Bucharest, Romania. In 1994 he presented Acuarelas y Cerámicas de Fúster at the Galería Espacio Abierto, Revista Revolución y Cultura, Havana. He presented Oil Paintings by Fúster in 1998 in Lyon, France. In 2007 his works were exhibited at The colours of life in The North Wall Gallery, Oxford, England and in 2008 at La Galleria, Pall Mall, London where he presented his ceramics and paintings in ‘The colours of Cuba’.

    Fuster has participated also in many group shows. In 1966 he was selected for Arte Popular, a show presented by ENIA (the National School of Art Instructors), at the Centro de Arte Internacional, Havana. In 1975 the exhibit Cerámicas Cubanas was seen at the Museo de Artes Decorativas, Havana. His work was part of Graphics, Photographs, Books and Handcrafts from Cuba, seen in New Delhi, India. In 1997 he was in the Feria Internacional de Artesanía. FIART ’97. PABEXPO in Havana.

    Fuster has made a major contribution over 10 years of work of rebuilding and decorating the fishing town of Jaimanitas in the outskirts of Havana, where he lives. Jaimanitas is now a unique work of public art where Fuster has decorated over 80 houses with ornate murals and domes to suit the personality of his neighbours, he has built a chess park with giant boards and tables, The Artists’ Wall composed of a quilt of dozens of tiles signed and donated by other Cuban artists, a theatre and public swimming pools.
    Nowadays, Fuster’s art is a cherished part of Cuban culture and joins the rank of other public artworks such as that of Gaudi in Barcelona or that of Brâncuși in the Romanian city of Targu Jiu. He sponsors this project by the sale of his paintings and ceramics.
    In 1974 Fuster won a prize in ceramics at the IV Salón Nacional Juvenil de Artes Plásticas, held at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana.
    His pieces can be found in collections at the Center for Cuban Studies, New York; the Museo de la Cerámica, Castillo de la Real Fuerza, Havana; and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana.

    From Wikipedia

  5. Rogelio Cobas

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    Painter and art professor Rogelio Cobas studied painting and sculpture at the Academy of St. Alexander and other art institutes in Cuba. He works to preserve native Cuban culture through his works in wood and other materials that convey the sensuality of forms. He is influenced by African imagery and culture, just as Cuba has been highly influenced by African culture. Cobas expresses forms taken from nature and the imagination. He has broken from established convention and his art is a personal vehicle of the interplay between the abstract and figurative, the decorative and poetic, the serious and whimsical. Cobas’ work is highly prized because of its limited availability.

  6. Ree Brown

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    Born in Utah, Ree Brown (1900 – 2014) worked for a petroleum company in Seattle, Washington and San Mateo, California, until the late 1960’s when he decided to return to Seattle and retire. Along with his partner, artist Jay Steensma, Ree scoured western Washington for antiques and then “peddled what we could, but there really wasn’t much money in it.” They were fixtures in the avant-garde art scene in Seattle from the 1970s till Jay’s death in 1995, and Ree for twenty more years after that.

    He was self-taught. In the mid-1970‘s Ree began to draw, and then paint and sculpt, making mostly small portraits of birds, cats, and people – pictures of “no one in particular.” Ree painted his delicate paintings onto scraps of paper, cardboard, bits of matting, brown paper bags, and just about anything else that will hold paint. “I was always interested in art,” says Ree.

    In the late 1980s, Ree started to show in Seattle with MIA Gallery, then at Garde Rail Gallery and most recently at Vermillion. Ree is also included in “20th Century American Folk, Self-Taught, and Outsider Art” by Betty-Carol Sellen and also featured in several documentaries about outsider art.

    Ree Brown died Monday, February 10, 2014 after a long battle with cancer. He was 87.

  7. Horacio Valdez

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    Horacio Valdez (1929 – 1992), a carpenter by trade, became a santero (a creator of religious images, literally “maker of saints”) in 1975 after sustaining a near fatal injury at the Nambe Dam project where he was employed. Valdez crushed his right hand in the accident and could not return to work. “I couldn’t hold a hammer,” he said, “but I could whittle.” Thus began Valdez’s prolific career as a wood carver in New Mexico, where he is noted for his influence in re-energizing traditional religious imagery.

    Horacio Valdez, Death Cart, Galerie Bonheur

     

    Valdez is best known for his Penitente-inspired death carts. These large scale sculptures depict a female skeletal image riding atop a miniature wooden ox cart. The skeleton, called La Muerte (Death) or Dona Sebastiana, usually carries a hatchet, bow and arrow, or other instrument of death. The figure is a reminder of human mortality or memento mori. Real death carts appear during Holy Week when members of the Brotherhood of the Penitentes, or “Hermandad de Nuestro Padres Jesus Nazareno,” reenact the suffering and crucifixion of Christ by pulling carts filled with stones in a procession as penance.

    The “La Muerte” Death Cart was commissioned by Galerie Bonheur directly from Horacio Valdez at his home in Dixon, New Mexico. The sculpture took approximately 8 months to complete, and Galerie Bonheur has maintained ownership of the piece since its creation in 1983. The death cart was on loan from October 5, 1986 to May 29, 1988 in a traveling exhibit entitled “Beyond Tradition: Contemporary American Folk Art.” This exhibit, organized by the Katonah Gallery (now the Katonah Museum of Art), traveled both throughout the United States and Europe. Other Valdez carvings have been shown at the Museum of American Folk Art, the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, the Taylor Museum in Colorado Springs, and the Albuquerque Museum. Another death cart, entitled “Carreta de Muerte” (1978) resides in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

    Valdez died August 16, 1992, at his home in Apodaca, east of Dixon. He is included in the 1990 Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists, by Chuck and Jan Rosenak.

    Folk Art. Winter 1992/93.
 Szabo, Joyce. Art, Culture, Place: Visual Traditions of the Southwest. University of New Mexico Art Museum. Weigle, Marta. The Peneitentes of the Southwest. New Mexico: Ancient City Press, 1970.

     

     

  8. Marie T.

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    “I was raised by an artist mom. She would take my sister and I to art museums in San Francisco, her favorite was the Modern Art Museum, her favorite artist was Picasso. As a little girl I dreamed about horses. I would draw a birds eye view of cowgirls on ranches with dozens of pretty horses.

    I grew up, went to college and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design. In my adult life I struggled to find my artist identity. My biggest inspiration comes from children and naive folk artists. I envy the untrained eye. In my mid 50s, when my husband and I bought a home in New Mexico, like dozens of artists before us, the calling to paint was intense.

    I went back to my child self bird’s eye view. Just like the child me, I still curl up in a chair with a board on my lap to create my visions. My paintings usually tell stories. They are usually based on reality, but I take liberty in arranging my worlds. My paintings are somewhat small, elaborately detailed with embroidery like brush work that take hours and hours to finish. I love color, I love the texture of the paint. Our home in an old hispanic village is rich with subject matter.

    For the last five years my best friend from childhood has taken me traveling around the world, India, Guatemala, Spain, Europe, Morocco, all places that have given me a life time of paintings in my head. Meeting Laurie Ahner last summer gave me the validation I had always dreamed of. I call myself an artist now and I don’t want to waste any time being anything else.”

    Marie T. was raised in Sonoma County, California. At Colorado State University she earned a B.F.A. and married her favorite drawing professor in 1986 (she asked him out after class, the rest was history.) For the next 20 years Marie raised a son and took care of aging parents while doing some free lance illustration and occasional outdoor murals. At the age of 56 Marie began painting inspired by the landscape of Taos County where she and her husband now live with two dogs and a few chickens.

    Text by Marie T.

  9. Jose Antonio da Silva

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    Jose Antonio da Silva (1909-1996) was a renowned outsider artist from Brazil.

    Da Silva grew up in the countryside of São Paulo. Much like his father, he experienced a harsh life of being a farm worker – physical labor in agriculture was taxing and unstable. As a young man, married with children, da Silva built a ranch by a stream and began drawing the humble surrounding filled with the beauty of nature and country life. In his mid-thirties, da Silva finally moved to the city and began working in restaurants.

    Soon after, when he was 37, he entered a regional art show. Although untrained and unknown, he received extraordinary admiration for his talent. Art critics loved his work. From there, da Silva’s career flourished. He painted prolifically and exhibited in Brazil and around the world. In the 1950s, he participated in the São Paulo Biennale and the Venice Biennale. Da Silva became known for his stylized portraits and abstract landscapes with vibrant colors and vigorous brushstrokes. Da Silva also wrote books and music and was featured in plays and films. Throughout his life, da Silva received numerous awards and honorable recognitions.

    Today, he is considered one of the most important Brazilian painters of the 20th century. His dynamic works continue to capture the audience’s hearts and are sought after by museums and private collectors in the global market. (Artist image: Guia das Artes)

    Jose Antonio da Silva, Brazil, Galerie Bonheur

    Train by Jose Antonio da Silva (Brazil), Galerie Bonheur