Um Certo São Paulo

“I am a painter inclined towards the urban landscape, towards the city. I love the city I live in, São Paulo, the largest city in South America. But I am not a realist or naturalist painter. I love the city filtered through memory, through signs and almost childlike marks, existing in that ambiguous space between dream and memory.

The places depicted are usually identified in the titles of the paintings after the fact, and in a very subjective way. I really do not expect people to see in them the same things I do. But the titles add to their poetry.

I am guided by Ut Pictura Poesis; not “as in poetry, so in painting”, but rather “as in painting, so in poetry”. As in poetry, I believe that what cannot be expressed through concepts, through strictly verbal discourse, is far more important than what can. Art is what slips through the cracks.

I believe that the rests are always more important than the notes, but that the former exist only because of the latter; and that, in the same way, the accident, the so-called noise, somehow breaks the shell of our meticulously controlled creation, opening it to the infinite possibilities of creation itself, and that this is the very reason for a work to exist.

I consider a painting finished when it reaches its formal balance in an informal way; when it is expressive and, at the same time, as measured and balanced as something by Poussin; when the tension between chaos and harmony resolves into drama.”

Mauricio Piza

Imaginary landscapes of São Paulo filtered through memory and dream: paintings made in the three years before the exhibition.

PontoArt Galeria

Rua Inácio Pereira da Rocha, 246 – Vila Madalena, São Paulo
Opening on Thursday, 12 September 2013, at 6:30 pm; on view from 13 to 28 September 2013. Talk with the artist on Saturday, 21 September.

In the press: note in the newspaper Grupo1, issue of 20–26 September 2013, p. 13.

Exhibited works

Titles in Portuguese. OST = oil on canvas; OSM = oil on wood.

1. Casa do Bandeirante, 2003, OST, 90 x 129 cm
2. Rios Tietê e Pinheiros, 2003, OST, 100 x 73 cm
3. Pico do Jaraguá, 2003, OST, 90 x 120 cm
4. Rio Pinheiros, 2003, OST, 80 x 90 cm
5. Noturno, 2004, OST, 70 x 90 cm
6. Ponte Sobre o Tietê, 2005, OST, 40 x 30 cm
7. Torre do Relógio, 2005, OST, 80 x 100 cm
8. Lembranças Estranhas, 2005, OST, 59 x 80 cm
9. Sem Título 3, 2005, OST, 59,5 x 80 cm
10. Lapa, 2005, OST, 80 x 100 cm
11. Ibirapuera, 2008, OSM, 142 x 45 cm
12. Ponte das Bandeiras, 2008, OST, 70 x 90 cm
13. Jockey Club, 2004, OST, 60 x 50 cm
14. Centro, 2011, OST, 40 x 30 cm
15. Berrini, 2011, OST
16. Centro, 2011, OST, 50 x 70 cm
17. Berrini, 2007, OST
18. Obelisco do Ibirapuera, 2007, OST, 80 x 100 cm
19. São Vito e a Mó, 2012, OST, 70 x 90 cm
20. A Rua, 2012, OSM, 20 x 119,5 cm
21. Liberdade, 2011, OST, 59,5 x 49,5 cm
22. Rio Pinheiros, 2011, OST, 60 x 80 cm
23. Nove de Julho, 2011, OST, 150 x 79,5 cm
24. Praça da República, 2011, OST, 40 x 65 cm
25. Bela Vista, 2011, OST, 40 x 65 cm
26. Ponte Estaiada, 2011, OSM, 74,5 x 100 cm
27. Avenida Prestes Maia, 2012, OST, 150 x 113 cm
28. Berrini, 2011, OST, 80 x 60 cm
29. Anhangabaú, 2012, OST, 100 x 80 cm
30. Viaduto do Chá, 2012, OST, 90 x 70 cm
31. São Vito e a Mó, 2012, OST, 60 x 80 cm
32. Sumaré, 2012, OST, 60 x 80 cm
33. Paisagem da Janela, 2012, OST, 100 x 81 cm
34. São Vito e a Mó, 2012, OST
35. Anhangabaú, 2012, OST, 150 x 112 cm