Ismael Nery was a Brazilian painter, draughtsman, and poet. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts, Rio de Janeiro, and travelled twice to Europe in the 1920s, where he was greatly influenced by avant-garde art. Reflections on the meaning of life always drove Ismael Nery’s artistic production: the self, the other and how they intersect, reflections and shadows, and the quest for wholeness are all recurring themes. In the painting Figura decomposta (1927), two schematically represented bodies – male and female torsos – are partially juxtaposed, facing forward. At the level of the neck, the figures subdivide, forming ambiguous images: are they both in profile or are they two halves of the same fragmented face? Nery illustrates the division of the primal unity of the feminine and masculine polarities, ideally constitutive of each individual, according to his theory of Essentialism. The simplification of forms, geometrisation, fragmentation of figures into planes, and the monochromatic palette are all part of the Cubist lexicon the painter absorbed during his first trip to Paris in 1920.
This is the first time the work of Ismael Nery is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Regina Barros
