Dalton Paula is a multifaceted artist working in painting, installation, performance art, photography, video, and the manufacture of objects. Full-Body Portraits (2023-24) is a series of sixteen paintings that take up the investigation the artist has been developing since the Afro-Atlantic Histories (2018) exhibition at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. In these works, historical figures of African descent who led, or were somewhat involved in, anti-slavery resistance movements in Brazil (such as Chico Rei, Zeferina, and Ventura Mina, among others) are represented in large-scale bipartite canvases – a stylistic trait that evokes the gap as metaphor for uniting memories and histories. This composition establishes a dialogue between landscape and background, presenting an almost monochromatic relationship between them, and references the scenographic structures of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photography studios. Objects that are similarly scenographic – including glasses, rocks, chairs, flags, columns, curtains, stairs, and sceptres – are inserted in this new series in a critical and symbolic way, making evident the possible relationships between image, memory, and power.
This is the first time the work of Dalton Paula is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Glaucea Helena de Britto
