Santídio Pereira: fertile landscapes

Santídio Pereira was born in the interior of Piauí, in the northeast of Brazil, in 1996, in an area characterized by a semi-arid ecosystem. During this period, as in previous decades, there were migratory flows to the southeast of the country. Although the region is commonly described for its climatic conditions with high temperatures and little rainfall, the village where the artist was born, Curral Comprido, in the municipality of Isaías Coelho, is in his memories as a place of heavy rain, especially in winter. At this time, the landscape is taken over by pink tassel grass, as the species originating from southern Africa is known in the region, with the scientific name Melinis repens.

The artist's memories, in addition to manifesting themselves in his drawings, materialize in the grass bed built by the artist in the exhibition space. It is an index of life, a kind of origin of the world. Its circular shape, as if it were a giant belly button, points to the cyclical nature of life. Grass is the beginning of the process of birth, growth and renewal. It is the beginning of a food chain in which energy is transferred between different species. Herbivores feed on grass and are consumed by carnivores. In addition to being the source of meat, milk, leather and tallow, grass is responsible for feeding horses, an important means of transport, even today, in the region.

the experience of Santídio Pereira, as he himself observes, is different from that of the retreatant presented in the literary work of Graciliano Ramos, in Vidas Secas, from the 1930s, marked by struggles and lack of perspective in the face of lack of rain and poverty. Santídio, on the contrary, points to the multiplicity of caatingas (basixões, plateaus, marshes, wet passage), to the richness of the region, instead of emphasizing the soil as infertile. His work also does not come close to the paintings of Candido Portinari, in which northeastern migrants, fleeing the drought towards urban centers, are represented in an edifying way, as examples that can instruct us about the social and human issues faced by the population during the drought. Santídio Pereira remember the different types of rain and the transformations of the flora, depending on the seasons. The leaves and flowers, in wetter periods, are abundant, and the greens are intense. His work is of extraordinary vitality; it confronts the commonplace of Piauí as arid and inhospitable, by presenting a happy, pleasant atmosphere with vibrant colors.

Instead of portraying an arid, desolate environment, with dry, cracked land and dead animals, Santídio's recent engravings and paintings choose vegetation as the central motif. Plants, in general, appear isolated from their biome of origin. They float, not as ideas, but as if they were above geographic and meteorological circumstances. Built from memory, images of him have exuberant aspects, they are full, often in flowering time. But they move away from the still life genre. They are not reminders about the ephemerality of life, but praises for the vital force of plants. The graphic language of santídio It is direct, without excess or drama, but it refuses scientific objectivity. Little by little, the artist simplified his vocabulary, using few resources, but to get to the basics, he used different nuances of light and chromatic subtleties.

In his series of birds from 2017 and 2018, color overlaps were frequent. The artist used several almost transparent layers, one on top of the other, in which plants were added to birds. Little by little, especially since 2022, he reduced the overlaps, and what was background became figure. Blue, yellow, red or pink leaves came to the foreground and became the protagonists of the engraving. What was previously just part of the composition, preparation for an image that would be applied on top, became a central theme and, little by little, gained a series of variations. According to the artist's study of various species from the caatinga (mandacaru, xique-xique) or the Atlantic forest (especially bromeliads), his drawings became masses of color. The same matrix can generate prints of different tones, but Santídio makes each print and each engraving different from the other, with a unique print run.

Many of his early prints featured black. Some had overlapping colors, but in recent works, black is rare. The colors in the work of santídio, in general, are solar; they emanate an intense and strong light. Its colors, mixed from offset inks used in large printing houses, are not restricted to representing the world, that is, they do not point to a direct correspondence with what is perceived. A flower can be blue or green, since your commitment is the correspondence between your memories and the sensations you want to imprint. The artist approaches the decorative, but without seeking universal rules or the commonplace; rather, it is based on your subjective and non-habitual experiences. The more intimate and singular his intentions are, the more they reverberate in others.

In what he does, the reference to a specific species of plant, which is available to his eyes, does not oppose the imagination, that is, the mentalization of something that is not present. It's as if he interpreted what he saw and what he remembers from what he saw, but in a different, new way, since it goes beyond what happened and what he remembers.

In his landscape engravings, more than using traditional engraving tools, such as a gouge for incisions on wood or plywood, santídio uses carpentry resources, in particular cutting out the wood and then fitting it together when printing. Which allows for a huge series of variations and combinations.

In his landscapes, the line is smooth and fluid. santídio it brings the mountains closer to the horizon and to each other, without resorting to traditional design. The lines that appear between two boards are lines that mark the meeting, and not exactly the incision in the wood. The white outline appears from the fitting, where the paint does not reach. Instead of a drawing made with the gesture and movement of the hand, the line indicates an approach, a fit and a dialogue with what is nearby. The line marks a distance and, at the same time, unites different tones. It's as if each mountain responds to the sun with its own timbre, and the white around it is a kind of glow, an intangible quality of the atmosphere.

The spaciousness is also a compliment to nature and the giant world to discover. If the landscapes of Alberto da Veiga Guignard, in the 1950s and early 1960s, tend to bring mists and mysteries, as if everything were suspended or in transformation, the views of santídio They are precise and crystal clear, but still present something fanciful. Whether the landscapes have warm or cold tones, they are clear, as if our eyes could see them completely, without illusions. But beneath this clarity there is something uncertain, as the light unifies the mountains and the horizon. It is not an impressionistic light that reflects or passes through objects, but a light that emanates from the mountains themselves. It is as if clarity came from within them, but without any spiritual connotation. The landscapes are flat, and ambiguity arises when the sky contrasts little with the mountain range; it appears as a calm continuity, with coherent nuances, with practically the same color as the mountains, instead of behaving like a background.

The Brazilian landscape was a central element in the investigations of several artists, from travelers and colonizers of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to modern painters. The artist, landscaper and amateur scientist Robert Burle Marx He is among the great landscape researchers. Throughout his career, he worked with plants from the cerrado, Amazon and northeastern backlands, valuing native species that had been little studied until then. As well as to Burle Marx, santídio does not approach the Brazilian landscape and species as exotic. By moving away from the stereotypical view of Brazil and its flora, the landscape is experienced by him as an essential human need for our existence.

the interest of santídio by botany is evident, as well as by his homeland. In addition to organizing an artistic residency and workshops that aim to help educate the inhabitants of the village where he was born, he goes on trips, expeditions of sorts. In them, he seeks to get closer to the natural landscape and visions for the practice of drawing. His attitude towards nature is not that of a predator or one who only removes the image that interests him. Nor does he behave like a tourist who takes a photograph and leaves for the next destination, like a carefree explorer. Instead of just sucking in relevant information, the way in which the artist presents himself to the world is based on exchanges, affections and significant experiences.

If some sketches, graphic notes, are made in his small notebooks, the final works are much larger. The scale of the work Santídio Pereira is that of the human body. Printed without the use of a press, the artist focuses on each engraving using tools, such as spoons, so that the ink settles on the paper. Many of his works are gigantic, and this means that our contact with them is not just with our eyes, but with our entire body. The large formats, in addition to indicating this desire to overcome the physical and manual challenge, point to an ambition to represent the world on a scale as close as possible to 1 x 1, without reducing the images to miniatures.

From time to time, santídio He also shows woodwork. Instead of printed or painted works on paper, the matrix itself is treated as an object. Wood has a physical presence and a greater weight than paper. Different species of plants are cut into their organic shapes, without a screen or background, painted and fixed directly to the wall. The pieces are well-finished and lie between the sculpture and the woodcut matrix, which is why the artist prefers the term object, which is broad enough to encompass painting, drawing and even aspects of installation. These objects are also loaded with memory, both in the sense of making present what is not nearby, and possibly giving rise to woodcuts.

Santídio Pereira He is a young artist, with an attentive eye and rare sensitivity. The quality of his work is also linked to the spontaneous and true way in which he relates to the world. His life story is an exception, and the visibility his work achieved is atypical in the art world. He knew how to relate his freedom to what was, in fact, necessary for him, betting on invention, but without renouncing his work or abandoning his origins. In this sense, his work is also original, it uses references from Piauí, as well as the tradition of modern engraving and painting, to project fertile horizons and fertile landscapes.

Cauê Alves (chief curator of MAM São Paulo)

 

execution 

Conversation between Cauê Alves and Santídio Pereira
December 14, 2023, artist's studio, São Paulo, SP

Cauê Alves: Let's start talking about your memories. How did you become interested in art? Tell us a little about your background, your education and studies.

Santídio Pereira: Artistic activities appear in my life especially from the moment I arrived in São Paulo. Before that, I had a relationship with something that could be understood as art. But I wasn't aware that this could be understood as art. It was a beautiful thing, there in the Caatinga, where I was born. When it was raining a lot, a lot, in the Caatinga, in winter, when the floods flooded the lowlands, and the water almost touched the houses. When it rained a lot, I had a habit to stop it from raining: I would take a stick, draw a circle in the red earth, in the red clay, pull some lines and make an eye for the sun; It was sunny to stop raining and it was sunny. This, like, is the first drawing I made in my life, if I think about it. It's my first relationship with drawing.

IT: So you started drawing on dirt, before it was on paper?

SP: A drawing from life. I made a drawing because people said: “Make a sun eye, and the sun will come. And then it will stop raining.”

IT: And did it help?

SP: It stopped raining; It had already rained a lot, anyway, it was going to stop raining, but I was a child, so I really believed it was my sunshine. There must be a story about this, it's a custom there in the Northeast.

IT: When you arrived in São Paulo, was it easy to adapt? Where did you start your studies?

SP: As soon as I arrived from Piauí, my mother placed me in a place called Instituto Acaia, which is Elisa Bracher's NGO here in São Paulo. And it was at Acaia that I had my first contact with what I understand as artistic procedures. For example, when I was eight years old, I started doing carpentry. And, in the carpentry classes, as I missed Piauí, I missed my childhood memories, the carpentry classes with professor [Ênio] Alex helped me to have Piauí close to me, again.

I wanted to have a little horse close to me, which was in Piauí. And Alex taught me how to materialize this horse in wood. So, I drew a picture of a horse together with Alex, we cut it out and we had a horse. For me, the horse I used to ride when I was seven, eight years old in Acaia was as true as the horse I had left in Piauí, in such a way that it filled the longing I had for what I had left in Piauí. The carpentry started like this, to satisfy the longing, to put into the world what I was missing. So I, at eight years old, I think, managed to materialize a lot of memories.

Then I took drawing classes with Andressa. It was in such a way that I looked at a bottle, a plant, anything that was in front of me, except the human being, because I'm not good at portraits, nor was I. And I felt very happy. I stopped doing carpentry, I stopped doing everything and I became crazy about drawing. It was really satisfying, I was still a child.

Then there came a time when I realized that drawing didn't satisfy me as much as carpentry workshops. I didn't want to draw what was in front of me; I didn't want to draw what I came into contact with. I wanted to draw what I didn't have, what I lacked. I wanted to put into the world what I was missing, not what was close to me. The observation drawing did not account for this symbolic part of the drawing. There came a time when it started to make no sense to me. One day, Alex said to me: “Santídio, how about you visit another workshop? Come on, there’s a teacher called Fabrício Lopez, there’s the group Xiloceasa, come on, I’ll introduce you.”

I started taking engraving classes. I started just making xilo. So, yes, there I drew, I tried to draw from memory. I would make a drawing, record that drawing. When it printed, it was something else, but it was something satisfying. Something heavy, that had gravity for me. First you make a drawing, you engrave it, then you print it. There is a huge change from the beginning to the moment of printing. Its design changes, everything is inverted, the masses come in, the whites, the blacks, the result is very good. I liked making engravings, so I said: “I want to join the Xiloceasa group”, a group set up by Fabrício that had a certain prestige in the institution, they went to fairs, sold their engravings.

IT: What is your research process like? Do you draw, photograph what you are going to study?

SP: I take photos, draw, have ideas. I go to nature, that's where the idea is born. I think, “This is blue; this here is green; this way is like that.” That's where ideas are born. But I take photos, draw, sketch and so on. I started looking for plants a lot. I went to the Pantanal. At that time at MAM Panorama, I left Panorama and, on the same day, I went there near Minas, looking for plants. It was an artistic immersion with several wonderful artists. I went there to draw plants, draw bromeliads, I spent two weeks drawing plants, looking. Ah, the little frog inside the plant, the sun bromeliad, shade bromeliad, semi-shade bromeliad, bromeliad with inflorescence, ground bromeliad, epiphytic bromeliad, researching and having ideas. When I arrived here, I had several drawings. I took the notebook, it had several bromeliads, several hills, many landscapes, I think it's Bocaina, Serra da Bocaina. I was there, I was drawing and I saw that there were a lot of hills. I thought, “I think I want to make hills as well as plants.” I started drawing the hills, making the hills, researching hills. I went to Minas a few times, behind hills. Hills are born from plants, because I went looking for plants, and the hill showed itself to me. The hill chose me, I chose the hill.

IT: Then you changed the way you work with woodcuts.

SP: It's another way of making woodcuts, much easier. That way, I thought: “I’m just going to make the hills in the cutout”. I don't even record these hills; I draw a hill on the wood, take the jigsaw, then paint that piece, paint the other piece, paint all the pieces, put them together and print. So, it is no longer an engraving.

IT: Then, you started to expose the wood, the matrices became objects.

SP: When I started cutting, incising and fitting, I saw that the wood was no longer a matrix. When I started cutting, I saw that it had an object quality and, aware of this, I thought: “I'm going to make an object, so it won't be a matrix anymore, it will be an object that will be printed”. Then an awareness of an object that can be printed is born, which changes everything. Even the impression itself changes, based on object consciousness. The printed result changes. Then, I thought: “I’ll cut it out”. Creating these objects, I began to understand how I could install them on the wall, and this unfolded… And I've been doing this for about three or four years.