Mazé´s works, inspired by the artistic movement, participate in exhibitions.
One hundred years ago André Breton published the first Surrealist Manifesto, thus embodying the soul of a movement that has influenced generations of artists to this day. As nothing comes from nothing, Surrealism brought in its germ the concept of psychic automatism originating from Dadaism. Influenced by Freud, whose ideas were in the spotlight at the time, he placed great importance on dreams and the unconscious. The artist would need to feel (and not think) the world, expressing his perceptions and sensations without the limiting sieve of reason. Throughout her career, Mazé Andrade was also influenced by this movement, mainly in her lithographic works, developed at the turn of this century. After studying drawing, painting, monotype and ceramics, the artist took a lithography course with master Hélio Soares, from the Department of Arts at the Federal University of Pernambuco. “It was a period in which I allowed my feelings, my ideas from childhood and youth, always permeated by popular imagination, to escape freely”, explains Mazé.
Exhibitions - Some of these lithographs are on display, in this year commemorating the centenary of Surrealism. They are “Fantasies of the Mind”, “Survival” and “Miscegenation”. The last two participated, between February and early April, in the collective “A Arte de Re-começar”, at Morumbi Town Shopping, in São Paulo, an event curated by Marisa Melo and held by Up Time Art Gallery.
According to the curatorial text, the exhibition approached the new beginning as a continuous and multifaceted process, revealing the richness of artistic expression, from paintings, photographs and sculptures, offering a complete sensorial experience. Highlighting the crucial role of art as a catalyst for personal and collective transformations, it invited the audience to reflect on their own narratives of renewal.
For Marisa Melo, what makes Mazé's art so impactful is its ability to transport us beyond our everyday lives, allowing us to transcend our conventional identities. “By contemplating his creations, we are invited to reinvent ourselves, to discover new facets of ourselves and to gain a new perspective on life. Mazé Andrade’s art inspires us to dream, create and connect with our own deepest selves, thus enriching our existence with a new dimension of meaning and beauty”, he comments.
“Fantasias da Mente”, a 1999 work, returned to exhibition this year in the traveling exhibition “Grandes Mestres”, curated by Adriana Scartaris and professor Oscar D´Ambrósio, with cultural production by Lícia Valim. The event seeks to recognize the relationships between present-day visual artists and the great masters of the past, those who formed generations, enabling current professionals to be “capable of seeing in art a way of transcending everyday life, not so much in the mystical sense – or perhaps including in it - but, mainly, in the aesthetic and, above all, in the existential”, describes D´Ambrósio in the invitation letter.
The first phase of the exhibition took place at the Museu da Cidade de Sertãozinho, in São Paulo, between February 16th and April 8th. The works will now move to the Chafi Miguel Salomão Cultural Center, in Cravinhos (SP). Finally, they will be exhibited at CH. Faria Arts Gallery, at Ribeirão Shopping Multiplan.
Poetics and technical data:
"Fantasias da Mente"
Women have always been protagonists in Mazé Andrade's works. In Fantasias da Mente, the female figure is also present, in the center of the image, but appears without aesthetic or moral concerns, as defined by André Breton in the Surrealist Manifesto. The work is an amalgam of the artist's experiences, bringing together fragments of memories and ideas derived from them that, now, without the supervision of the superego, have fled, escaped from the mind into the lithographic stone. Elements present in Mazé's childhood are the sisal cap, the aridity of the soil and many fantastic stories that were told and gained unique representations in her imagination. One of the stories I heard when I was young was about a girl with breasts so large that she threw them over her head to breastfeed her children. In the artistic work, the breasts cover the woman's face, but the third eye of intuition, of spirituality, guides her.
Another tory known and discussed even in scientific circles, gaining flourishes in the popular version, is that the Sertão was once the sea (this is not the prophecies of Antônio Conselheiro, but the distant past, dating back to Pangea). Thus, the protagonist of the work is sitting on parched grasses (similar to sisal) and, further in the background, there is a region of sea that has dried up. Circles like waves make this correlation, at the same time that elements emerge from the desertified soil: female mouth and leg on one side, sea plants on the other. These background figures also highlight the influence of Surrealism on Mazé’s work.
Finally, the woman is sitting with her legs drawn up. This position is repeated in some of the artist's lithographs, revealing her shyness, a harmful characteristic as it isolates a person from society. “It’s the character trying to hide within herself”, explains the artist.
“Fantasies of the Mind”
Lithograph Total: 48 cm x 69 cm
Date: 1999
Limited copies
Poetics and technical data:
Survival
"Arid Land and Living Memories: An Analysis of the Lithograph “Survivence”, by Mazé Andrade.
Mazé Andrade’s lithograph, entitled `Survival’, evokes a narrative deeply rooted in his childhood memories and the arid landscape of the northeastern backlands. The scene described reveals a vivid and poetic visual portrait, where elements such as thorns, straws, fish out of water and a snake snapping up a thin, fallen animal come to life in the artist's hands. Born at the top of Serra da Borborema, in Paraíba, Mazé Andrade brings back memories of her first years on a mill, where she was immersed in an environment with a mild climate, surrounded by fountains and waterfalls. However, at the age of 9, his reality changed when he migrated to a municipality subject to drought, where drought and scarcity became an integral part of his daily life. The work captures not only the physical aridity of the environment, but also the sensitivity and complexity of human interactions with nature. The presence of female figures, a hallmark of Mazé Andrade's works, adds depth to the composition. The image of a woman from behind, as if 'holding' the scene, suggests an intrinsic connection between the human being and the arid land that surrounds her. Just as the arid universe of the northeastern backlands permeates his works, Mazé also portrays the exuberance of the flora and fauna of the green forests of the interior region, as well as his current place of residence in Greater Recife. Through her art, she records disparate and unforgettable worlds, capturing the multifaceted essence of life and the northeastern landscape. In `Survival´, Mazé Andrade rescues scenes from his childhood, and invites the viewer to reflect on the beauty and harshness of life in the backlands, celebrating his rich cultural heritage and his personal experiences in a captivating and evocative way.” Marisa Melo “Survival” Lithograph 48 cm x 66cm
Poetics and technical data:
Miscegenation
“Miscegenation is a concept that refers to the mixing of different ethnicities, cultures and origins, resulting in a unique and rich diversity. In Mazé's lithographs, miscegenation is represented through the fusion of symbolic elements and faces that reflect the multiplicity of human experience and the connection between different identities and stories.” Marisa Melo
In Miscegenação, Mazé Andrade reflects on our existence as creatures of nature and this, in its abundance and diversity, has also allowed us to develop multiple characteristics. Together, the different peoples created their customs and traditions, formed their ethnicities, coexisting with the generative nature according to their needs.
In the work, nature materializes in the central figure, taking the form of a tree bark that spreads to release its seeds; the eye, always present in Mazé's works, is that of Divine providence, or of mother nature herself (creator and creature). Below it appear the seeds. Above, more discreetly, you can see a door. The side figures come from the same matrix. With this, the artist highlights that, even though people have formed different ethnicities, mixed later in the course of History, we all come from the same origin. The different flowers, leaves and fruits that we have are not fauna, for example, something dissonant. Natural harmony results from brotherhood, and so it should be among men.
The spirals on the base and face denote the constant changes of people, in different aspects, throughout their evolutionary process. Ultimately, nothing is “loose” in societies and in the universe, all living beings appear emanated from origin to eternity.
Technical Data
Miscegenation
48 cm x 66 cm
Copies: limited to 10 copies
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