Known by the name of the city where he was born,José de Guimarães(1939) is a figure of Portuguese art, who explored various areas from the visual arts, through geology, engineering to archaeology. Travels to Africa, Asia and South America marked his career by stimulating and developing an aesthetic language. At the end of the 1970s, he built an alphabet based on the forms and symbols of African culture, introducing this in his works. In the 1980s, he began to explore the boundaries between painting and sculpture, with pieces produced with unconventional materials - fiberglass and paper specifically made by the artist himself. With strong and cheerful colors, his works are characterized by the intersection of themes between animal and human, mineral and vegetable. For decades the Portuguese artist has collected African, pre-Columbian and ancient Chinese art that is currently on display at the CIAJG - Centro Internacional de ArtesJosé de Guimarães. Meet five artists with works similar toJosé de Guimarães.
Álvaro Lapa
Active participant in the artistic contemporaneity of an important part of the second half of the Portuguese 20th century,Álvaro Lapahe asserted himself in a unique path through his drawings, studies, painting guided by an elegant figuration, in a universe full of image and word. The works with vibrant colors, dense blacks and pasty whites, and extraordinary figures that resemble the works ofJosé de Guimarães. Álvaro Lapaborn in Évora, in 1939. Degree in Philosophy from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon. His adolescence was marked by his contact, in Évora, with the painter António Charrua and the writer Virgílio Ferreira, who aroused his interest in art and literature. In 1956 he settled in Lisbon. He enrolled in Law and, later, in Philosophy, a degree he completed in 1975. In 1961 he traveled to Paris, where he came into contact with painters close to surrealism and North American artistic movements. When he returned, he began to paint, encouraged by António Areal, conceiving works with a strong abstractionist and informal vocation. He exhibited individually for the first time in 1964 and the following year he moved to Lagos. During this period, he explored the use of “non-noble” materials and began to structure his work in narrative series, in which he integrates a restricted set of symbols and shapes, also including the written word as an element of plastic composition. He joined as a professor of theoretical subjects at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes do Porto in 1976 and settled in that city. In the 1980s, he met José-Augusto França, who supervised his doctoral thesis on Surrealism in Portugal. In parallel with his plastic production, Lapa devoted himself continuously to writing, having been the author of numerous publications. ) and the EDP Grand Prix (2004). He died on February 11, 2006, in Porto.
Demit Omphroy
Demit Omphroy studied art at the University of California, Berkeley. For a few years he was a professional football player, but later followed a new career in photography and cinema. Painting has always been a constant passion in the different stages of his life, whether in personal and professional development. Thematically, all of her pieces focus on channeling the inner child, thus allowing her artistic expression to be heavily influenced by simplified lines and primary colors. The colors you use are normally not altered, thus targeting specific tones. From the extraordinary figures to the strong use of vivid colors we can understand the artist's experiences, from moments of love or pain. As in the paintings ofJosé de Guimarães, there is a story full of emotions that is told, through the pigments and movements.
Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis (1892-1964) is one of the preeminent figures in American modernism, with a long career spanning from the early 20th century to the post-war period. Faced with a choice between realism and pure abstraction early in his career, Stuart Davis invented a vocabulary that pegged the grammar of abstraction to the speed and simultaneity of modern America. By fusing the bold style of advertising with the conventions of European avant-garde painting, he created an art endowed with vitality and dynamic rhythms. In the process, he achieved a rare synthesis: an abstract art, but at the same time exudes the spirit of popular culture. At the same time,José de Guimarãesbrought real figures to a universe of its own, in which it exalted various cultures, from Portuguese, African and Asian. The strong pigments, figuration and abstract elements establish similar rhythms between the two artists.
Otmar Alt
Otmar Alt is a German artist known for his colorful sculptures and paintings depicting animals and people. This choice is similar to the work of the Portuguese artistJosé de Guimarãeswhich also consecutively depicts animals and people with strong pigments. Born on July 17, 1940 in Wernigerode, Germany, he studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin with the sculptor Karl Hartung. He later worked as a set designer, a career that shaped his development as an artist who paints three-dimensional objects. The influences of artists such asJoan MiróandPaul Klee, both in the interest in children's art and in the pictorial sense of humor.
Ammar Alobaidi
Ammar Alobaidi has an abstract language full of bright colors, rhythmic patterns, graphics, black and white on the other. Texture is implied with checkered areas, dots or wavy lines, while compositions are built with careful precision. The human figure is often suggested, but each character is joined in harmonious continuity as one form overlaps another in a way reminiscent ofJosé de Guimarães, Picassoormatisse.
The visual bonds between men and women are a visual allegory for the reunification of society. Faced with a world disfigured by wars and by what the artist calls “horrors” that lead human beings to their lowest instincts of individual and collective destruction, Alobaidi reveals the strength of love, solidarity and exchanges of generosity that can happen. spontaneously.
