carlito carvalhosa

Carlito Carvalhosa's (b. 1961, São Paulo, Brazil - d. 2021, São Paulo, Brazil) work predominantly involves painting and sculpture. In the 1980s, Carvalhosa was a member of the São Paulo-based collective Grupo Casa 7, alongside Rodrigo Andrade, Fábio Miguez, Nuno Ramos, and Paulo Monteiro. Like his colleagues, he produced large paintings with an emphasis on pictorial gesture, an approach that was characteristic of the neo expressionist production. In the late 1980s, with the group having disintegrated, Carvalhosa began to experiment with encaustics and to make pictures using wax, either pure or mixed with pigments. In the mid-1990s, he turned to sculptures, making organic and malleable-like pieces with materials such as the so-called “lost waxes”. During this period, he also experimented with porcelain sculptures. 

Carvalhosa has ascribed deep eloquence to the materiality of the media that he employed, seeking to transcend formal aspects in order to explore matters of time and space..  In his practice, one encounters a tension between form and materiality through a disjunction of the visible and the tactile - what we see is not what we touch, and what we touch is not what we see. At the beginning of the 2000s, he created paintings on mirrored surfaces which, in the words of curator Paulo Venancio Filho "put our presence inside them”. Beyond Carvalhosa's recurrent techniques and materials, the artist has also frequently experimented with objects like tissues and lamps in his creation of installations.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Matter as Image. Works from 1987 to 2021, at Nara Roesler (2022), in New York, USA; Sala de espera, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP) (2013), in São Paulo, Brazil; Sum of Days, at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (2011), in New York, USA; Corredor, Projeto Parede, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) (2008), in São Paulo, Brazil; Já estava assim quando eu cheguei, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio) (2006), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Recent group shows include:Past/Future/Present: Contemporary Brazilian Art from MAM, atMuseu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) (2019), in São Paulo, Brazil, and at Phoenix Art Museum (2017), in Phoenix, USA ; Troposphere – Chinese and Brazilian Contemporary Art, at Beijing Minsheng Art Museum (2017), in Beijing, China; Everything You Are, I Am Not: Latin American Contemporary Art From Tiroche Deleon Collection, at Mana Contemporary (2016), in Jersey City, USA; 30 x Bienal, at Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (2013), in São Paulo, Brazil; 11th Bienal de La Habana, Cuba (2011). His works are part of several important collections such as: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, USA; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.