Untitled work by José Antônio da Silva.

José Antônio da Silva, one of the leading interpreters of life and culture in the interior of São Paulo, was often considered "primitive" because he was a self-taught artist. Although Silva positioned himself as a defender of primitive art throughout his life, the word carries a stigma, as it presupposes an evolutionary line in which some cultures are more "advanced," while others are more "backward."

But Silva's work, whose death will mark three decades next year, remains more relevant than ever; recently, it was the subject of a monographic exhibition in France, Porto Alegre, and São Paulo. His works transcend the label of primitive – and that is what the painter and curator Paulo Pasta seeks to combat in his work. I am Silva., an exhibition currently on display at Galeria Estação, brings together works that highlight the artist's versatility and redefine his legacy as a painter. 

The paintings, produced between the 1940s and 1980s, come from private collections and the gallery's own holdings. The selection, says Pasta, presents examples beyond the artist's best-known works, showing how, in his own way, Silva incorporated various influences of Brazilian modernism into his art. 

Untitled work (1972) by José Antônio da Silva. Photo: João Liberato.

“He was always very aware and attentive to his expressive means, he knew how to transform his poetics into form,” says the curator. “And he did it all without safeguards, without any formal training, with his own resources. Silva was very aware of his own worth. He used to say: 'If everyone says I'm a genius, why should I be stupid and say I'm not?'”

The curator highlights the artist's rural landscapes, which take on an abstract character: each point represents a unit of the plantation, stretching to the horizon and merging with the clouds. In certain works, the influence of pointillism can be observed, where each brushstroke becomes a constitutive element of the space. 

One example that stands out from the rest of the work is a still life from 1954, painted in somber and earthy tones. Silva depicts papayas next to a wasp's nest, suggesting a danger that could unfold at any moment – ​​the scene reflects the narrative of someone with work experience connected to the countryside, who does not see nature as idyllic, but rather as a terrain of frequent disputes. “It's something between life and death, sweetness and bitterness, pleasure and pain. He revives the fundamental myths of humankind,” says Pasta. 

“Silva didn’t simply reproduce nature – he followed the maxim that a painter doesn’t paint what he sees, but rather sees what he paints,” says the curator. “The portrait he made of his life was in a new way, projecting a bit of his essence. This gave his work a timeless character.” 

“Bees and Papayas” (1954), by José Antônio da Silva.

This dialectic of tension and coexistence is also present in Silva's landscapes. In a work from 1987, the confrontation between nature and civilization is evidenced by severed tree trunks in front of a vast cotton field. In his portraits of urban scenes, instead of highlighting people, he depicted anonymous housing complexes lined up, just like his plantation landscapes.

Beyond critical admiration for Silva, the painter played an important role in Pasta's personal development. The curator had met him on intercity bus trips, and the artist readily shared anecdotes, childhood memories, and experiences working in the countryside, which are reflected in scenes from his work. "He was a typical country storyteller," says the curator. "He told stories that appeared in his work – a wildfire, a downpour that floods everything. These memories enhance the fantasy, give wings to the imagination. But the storytelling doesn't replace the artistic realization. There's an equivalence between what he's saying and how." 

This is the second exhibition that Pasta has organized at Galeria Estação – the other took place in 2009, and since then, the artist's work has remained in vogue. In the critical text, Pasta begins with a quote from Pablo Picasso: "since Van Gogh, we are all self-taught painters, almost primitives." Silva positioned himself alongside these two artists, his favorites, as one of the geniuses of modern painting. His scenes inaugurate an ambiguous, interchangeable universe, in which motifs and forms become confused – as in "Train," a 1977 work in which the smoke of a locomotive cutting through fields dissipates in the air and transforms into a horizon with a quick brushstroke. "For him, what was important was not painting the life of nature, but making painting itself alive," says the curator. 

 


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