Carlito Carvalhosa

Carlito Carvalhosa was a Brazilian artist renowned for his innovative exploration of paint, wax, fabric, and lighting to examine the perception of architectural space.

Biography of Carlito Carvalhosa

Carlito Carvalhosa was born in 1961 in São Paulo, Brazil. He pursued architecture and urban planning at the University of São Paulo.

In the 1980s, Carvalhosa joined a collective of artists known as Casa 7, which included Nuno Ramos, Fabio Miguez, Rodrigo Andrade, and Paulo Monteiro. Together, they revitalized painting in Brazil during a period when it was deemed insignificant.

By the end of the 1980s, the group had dissolved, and Carvalhosa was awarded a scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst in Cologne. In the ensuing years, the artist delved into experimentation with sculpture and installation and commenced collaborations with artists such as Philip Glass.

Carvalhosa's recent focus has been on architectural interventions and interactive installations, with his most renowned piece being "Sum of Days" (2011), a monumental site-specific installation crafted for the atrium of MoMA.

His solo exhibitions include "Carlito Carvalhosa: Matter as Image. Works from 1987 to 2021" at Nara Roesler in New York (2022), "Linhas do espaço tempo" at Instituto Ling in Porto Alegre (2022), "Área de propriedade" at Fábrica de Arte Marcos Amaro, Marinque in São Paulo (2021), "I Want to Be Like You" at Nara Roesler in New York (2019), "Já estava assim quando eu cheguei" at Sesc Guarulhos in Guarulhos (2019), and many more.

Carvalhosa passed away in 2021 in São Paulo, Brazil. Today, his works are part of the collections at prestigious institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami, among others.

Carlito Carvalhosa's Art Style

Carlito Carvalhosa stands as one of Brazil’s most renowned conceptual artists. Through sculptures and ambitious installations, Carvalhosa explored architectural space and the essence of materials, employing an array of mediums and found objects like electric lights, fabric, wax, and mirrors. His artistic journey commenced with abstract paintings that intertwined painterly gestures with a focus on materiality. Over time, he continued his exploration of materials, incorporating techniques such as the Egyptian lost-wax method and working extensively with porcelain.

The artist was part of the São Paulo-based collective Grupo Casa 7. Similar to his peers, he created large paintings emphasizing pictorial gesture, aligning with the neo-expressionist style. As the group disbanded in the late 1980s, Carvalhosa embarked on experiments with encaustics, crafting images using wax, both pure and mixed with pigments. By the mid-1990s, he transitioned to sculpture, fashioning organic, malleable pieces utilizing materials like the so-called "lost waxes." During this period, he also explored porcelain sculpture.

Carvalhosa attributed profound significance to the materiality of the mediums he utilized, aiming to surpass formal aspects to explore the realms of time and space. In his work, a tension between form and materiality emerges, characterized by a disconnection between the visible and the tactile—what we see differs from what we touch, and vice versa. In the early 2000s, he crafted paintings on mirrored surfaces. Alongside his recurring techniques and materials, Carvalhosa frequently explored objects such as tissues and lamps in the creation of his installations.