Women Painters Lead Brazil’s New Wave of Figuration

A Hyperallergic feature describes a renewed surge of figurative painting in Brazil led by women artists, arguing that recent work brings heightened urgency compared with earlier institutional emphases on early modernist figuration and mid-century abstraction. It situates the moment in relation to Brazil’s earlier “return to painting” during the Geração 80, when artists such as Luiz Zerbini, Beatriz Milhazes, Leda Catunda, and José Leonilson moved away from strict geometric abstraction while still blending abstraction with material experimentation. The article highlights the contemporary frankness with which women painters depict eroticism, desire, and violence against women, building on precedents set by artists like Anna Bella Geiger and Lenora de Barros. It names five artists as central to the revival: Panmela Castro, Agrade Camíz, Márcia Falcão, Maya Weishof, and Gokula Stoffel. In discussing Castro, it cites her 2021–22 solo exhibition To Flaunt is to be alive at Galeria Luisa Strina in São Paulo (curated by Daniela Labra) and works including the neon text “Cada Día Peor” (Vigil series, 2021) and “Eu Sobrevivi” (Residency series, 2021).

Read the full article at Hyperallergic