Amadeo Lorenzato
The Mysterious World Invented by Lorenzato

AMADEO LORENZATO

Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato
Self-taught painter and free spirit
No formal schooling
Doesn't follow trends
Doesn't belong to any cliques
I paint as I please
Amen
Text written on the back of a 1948 painting

São Paulo took a long time to learn about Lorenzato, a fact that this exhibition helps to remedy. During his life spanning the last century (1900-1995), he was, at least from the 1950s onwards, when his work took off, almost a proud secret cultivated by his admiring compatriots in Belo Horizonte, the city where he was born and spent most of his life. There was a long interval between 1920 and 1948, the starting point of which was a trip to Italy with his parents. Within that interval there was another: a two-year trip through Europe, from Italy to Turkey, in the company of a Dutch artist, Cornelius Keesman, a trip described only as a study trip, as he would explain, to obtain free passage [through the countries].

The real purpose of this trip will never be known, since he never properly explained it (from Bach to Burroughs, from Brancusi to Kerouac, the history of art is permeated with initiatory pilgrimages). Whatever the reason, he saw a lot of art in museums and churches and scattered throughout the streets, which is evident when examining his extensive and complex work. It's certain that he left here mastering his craft as a house painter, and when he began painting, already in Italy, the two practices became harmonious, even after his retirement from construction.

Lorenzato's poetics, as is characteristic of great artists, are unique. He doesn't belong to any movement, any particular clique, although he engages with many people from afar. But try to list the artists who invented worlds. There are few. And Lorenzato's is very particular. Explore the many landscapes brought to this exhibition. Notice the skies, especially the clouds, ah, Lorenzato's clouds, dense, varying in strange shapes.

And what to say about those tree trunks, bamboo groves, green rows, sudden intertwinings, complex weaves, which have nothing to do with the observation of nature? There are also the people, the little oxen, all with indefinable faces, things that don't reveal themselves; and the play of colors making our gaze play hopscotch, colors, like everything else, dull, without shine, forcing us to get closer, drawing our attention to the thick surface, inviting us to inhabit them.

Curator Agnaldo Farias

Presented by
Galeria Frente and Errol Flynn Art Gallery