Untitled - 2009
Acrilic on paper
27.55 x 39.37 in (70x100cm)
Aurelino dos Santos, who works mainly with painting, has also tried other forms of artistic support, such as tapestry. His works, where geometrization is the most significant characteristic, represent an idealized architecture with planes, forms and colors. The artist constructs landscapes with strong colors, as seen at the same time from above and from the side, a mix of several different references, passing through phases of Baroque, Concretism and Neoconcretism. Aurelino, who produces art on a compulsive basis, lives in an extremely basic house in the vicinity of Ondina, in Salvador. He does not know how to read or write, and can only draw his name with great difficulty of penetrating into the universe of language. Accompanied with a madness of mysterious reasons, he walks around, collecting miscellaneous materials that are molds for the initial strokes of his work. Everything in the works of Aureliano dos Santos comes down to geometry. The landscapes drawn by the artist, bring out urban life in a unique manner, formed from triangles, circles and rectangular shapes. The organization of these forms within his provokes deep questioning, as it is disorganization that seems to dominate his mind.
Photograph: Afro Brazil museum.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND CONFERENCES
2013 Aureliano | paintings, Galeria Estação, São Paulo | SP
2012-2013 Janet Costa "Look," Janet Coast Museum of Popular Art, Niterói | RJ
2012 Stubbornness of Imagination: Ten Brazilian artists, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo | SP
2012 Stubbornness of Imagination: Ten Brazilian artists, Centro Cultural Paco Imperial, Rio de Janeiro | RJ
2012 Histoires de Voir: Show and Tell, Fondation Cartier pour l' Art Contemporain, Paris | France?2011 Transfiguration of the Royal Museum Afro - Brazil, São Paulo | SP
2011 SP Arte, Biennale Pavilion, São Paulo | SP
2010 SP Arte, Biennale Pavilion, São Paulo | SP
2009 Art Fair Madrid, Pabellón de Cristal, Madrid | Spain
2007 Encounter Between Two Seas : Biennale São Paulo - Valencia, Convento del Carmen, Valencia | Spain
2006 Viva Povo Brasileiro Culture, Museum Afro - Brazil, São Paulo | SP Pop Brazil
2002: folk art and folk art, Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil, São Paulo | SP
2000 Brasil 500 Anos, Biennale Pavilion, Sao Paulo | SP
1995 The Heirs of the Night: fragments of the imaginary black, Culture Center of Belo Horizonte , Belo Horizonte | MG
1994 Art and Religiosity Afro - Brazilian, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt | Germany