THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN

With my eyes closed in the morning silence, I design and build – your image in my mind, your colors, its shapes, its body and its details, it becomes so real that I can smell your perfume, hear the sound of your voice, feel the taste of your mouth. When opening my eyes the light slowly reveals the objects of my scenery, your desired body, your skin, hugs and kisses. This is how the painting reveals itself, so its colors, textures, materials create a visual vocabulary of man and their history, of their bodies, their homes and cities, their deserts, its gardens and forests, its landscapes and their truths. Much more than a gesture, Gilvan’s paintings are acts of the human will, the artists paint with their hands, with the head and the heart, dance, hug, dive his body inside this mysterious forest, in this disturbing flora that the pictorial matter reveals and accentuates its power and its value. Everything here conspires to build a universe in which leaves, flowers, seeds, the oneiric and the real intertwine; flowing ink tubes, colors, many colors, incandescent, sweeping, waterfalls, spurts, orgasms. The space is densely populated like a tangle of shapes and colors that end up creating a strangely beautiful, baroque, tropical landscape.

Gilvan Nunes’ paintings are, therefore, the portrait of the courage of the artist who refuses to distance himself. Here he is the agent of history, its executioner and its victim. There it is, him, me and all of us immersed in this sea of ​​colors that inebriates us. Gilvan faces painting as the essence of life. Like Zerbini, he is enchanted by the setting and the richness of details; like Catunda and Milhazes he is fascinated by organic forms, sometimes touching the allegory, sometimes touching nature; like Guinle and Varejão, he builds deep and gestural, abyssal, genitals. A little while ago I said that Gilvan Nunes’ canvases are animated beings. They are there, everywhere, full of daring and courage, incisively marking his presence in the national art scene. In your complex visually they are much more what mere words enraptured, or misguided theories that spend their lives.
The trying to justify the unexpected and the surprise. The work in its concrete dimension is the true guardian of its own qualities. So my dear friend (as old Machado would say) don’t waste your time anymore reading these ill-drawn lines, step away from me and dive in this fascinating adventure proposed by the artist. They will be pulsing the body of a painting that recreates and transforms the world. Open your eyes, your heart and your mind and let yourself be carried away by the beauty and enchantment caused by the chaotic, disturbing and strangely beautiful universe that Gilvan Nunes presents.

Rio de Janeiro, 2014

MARCOS LONTRA

Painting! Painting!

How good it is to see old friends again! In our day-to-day life ruled by messages, faxes,
email, text messages, it is always important to see the strength of concrete acts, the real and true presence, the hug full of affection, affection and friendship.
In front of the spectacular works by Gilvan Nunes I feel the force and impact of the painting, old companion of all of us and my thoughts wander through history, through the world that this old and dear companion recorded, accompanied and interpreted for centuries, Giotto, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Velásquez, Poussin, Turner, Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, how many names, how many images that taught us to see and understand the world in that we live, stroll through our museum of memory.
The world of virtualities, the civilization of absences, does not fully respond to human expectations and needs. The body, its limits, its transformations, editions, deletions and additions are essential matters in the contemporary scenario. Gilvan Nunes responds to such concerns with the powerful force of his paintings that, like bodies full of light, invade our retinas, provoke our sense of smell, invite us to touch, perspire, provoke, seduce. As Leminski teaches us, everything here inspires, exudes, everything conspires.

There is in Gilvan Nunes’ canvases, a generosity of colors, shapes and materials that invade
our retinas with the creation of a garden of visual delights, wild forest and exuberant, fauna and flora full of life and enchantment. By the entire surface of the work, runs through a vibrant energy, a pleasurable exercise of freedom, an enchantment evident by pictorial praxis; Gilvan is an authentic and legitimate representative of a generation of artists who, from the 1980s onwards, reintroduced pictorial art in the contemporary arena. Like Zerbini, he has the enchantment of scenery and by detailing; like Catunda and Milhazes he is fascinated by the organic forms unique, sometimes touching the allegory, sometimes touching nature; such as Guinle and Varejão, he builds deep, gestural materials and densities.
Gilvan Nunes’ canvases are like animated beings. Some things can be explained by given words, can be defined by a concept or explained through a contextualization. But the painting is just like life, it is only justified by the fact that it is there, in the real world, it is only justified through its concreteness, its palpable existence, sensitive, visible. It is necessary to see the paintings of Gilvan Nunes so that we can practice the exercise of the communion of beauty. This short text is only intended to invite the friendly reader to abandon this text quickly and run to be dazzled – and enchanted – with the strength and vitality of the art produced by the artist.

Rio de Janeiro, 2012