Exhibition Info
In 1996, with support from Brazilian Contemporary Arts and Secretaria de Estado da Cultura de Mina Gerais, Elms Lesters held two exhibitions, back to back, featuring the work of five Brazilian Contemporary Artists.
Two private views were held, both in the presence of His Excellency the Ambassador of Brazil, Mr. Rubens Antonio Barbosa
AMILCAR DE CASTRO (1920 – 2002) is considered one of the foremost Brazilian sculptors, and a leading figure of the Brazilian neo-constructivist movement. Amilcar de Castro was particularly famous for large, bold simple iron forms nearly always characterised by a design based on “one cut, one fold”
(sculpture right)
FERNANDO VELLOSO, from Belo Horizonte, trained as an architect but chose to become a profesisonal artist. For over twenty years he has been invoved with the esteemed Grupo Corpo Dance Company, first as Scenic Designer and latterly as Program Coordinator.
MARCOS COELHO BENJAMIM (born 1952) is a self taught artist who first began to work as a cartoonist, graphic artist and illustrator. For over thirty years he has been involved in the visual arts. His sculptural works use cloth, tin, wood and found objects, and demonstrate how indigenous textile traditions re-echo in contemporary art. In 1989 he won the Grande Premio in the XXth Bienal of Sao Paulo.
MANFREDO DE SOUZANETTO (born 1947) Studied architecture in Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro, but his period spent in Paris between 1975 and 1979 at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, steered him to a life immersed in the visual arts. Considered by many to be a successor to the legacies of concretism and neoconcretism, he insists his relationship to geometry is much more a result of his architectural studies and his interest in the Bauhaus experiment.
MAXIMO SOALHEIRO (born 1955) is a self taught ceramicist who began making hand made tiles in the suburbs of Belo Horizonrte. Over forty years he has developed his own unique collection of clays and glazes. His work ranges from purely functional to fine art installations. His work has a purety of form and an integrity to the material.