Guilherme Santos da Silva, First job in Sao Paulo, 2024. Oil on canvas, 58 x 78 cm | 22.8 x 30.7 in.

The sea of the Northeast, dreamlike and idealized, in paintings with subtle personal and social connotations, drives the research in Pra Vela Não Se Apagar, the first solo show by Rio de Janeiro artist Guilherme Santos da Silva (Rio de Janeiro, 1987) at Janaina Torres Galeria, curated by Alexandre Araujo Bispo and opening on May 11 in São Paulo.

In the new works that make up the exhibition, oil paintings on canvas of varying dimensions, more or less identifiable sailboats are inserted into natural landscapes of beige, almond, khaki and brown tones, sometimes bordered by shades of blue, creating a “visual world of its own, almost magical”, as the curator points out.

Guilherme updates the “constructive will”, imbuing this tradition with the urgencies of the contemporary – as highlighted by the recent exhibition “The Fourth Constructive Generation in Rio de Janeiro”, shown at FGV Arte (RJ), curated by Paulo Herkenhoff, in which the Rio de Janeiro artist was one of the highlights.

This is a painting that brings together memory and experience, the fruit of a self-taught artist who began his artistic activity by painting walls and gates and migrated to canvases, incorporating into his work the strength of elements that involve the artist’s biography, in a dialog between affections and questions around narratives of class and belonging.

In his canvases, Guilherme evokes both his experience in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro and the memory of his grandparents, who came from Cajá, in Paraíba, on a forced move to Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s – a crossing “laden with melancholy” and which produced in the artist an inherited feeling of always being out of place, which comes through in the titles of his works, such as Vim com ele e nossos filhos, Você entendeu que vem de lá and Eu cantaria o caminho inteiro.
For Araujo Bispo, the choice of geometric figuration sets Guilherme apart from a significant proportion of contemporary black artists, who opt for a more descriptive realism. “Like another group of artists, Guilherme opted for geometric figuration, which helps him achieve his poetic goals,” says the curator. “The constructive and delicate geometry conceals a passionate relationship with each new composition.”

So the candle won’t fade
Guilherme Santos da Silva
Curator: Alexandre Araujo Bispo

Opening 11.05, 2pm to 4pm
Ends 13.07.2024

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Friday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturdays: 10am to 4pm