| THE FRUITION OF SEEING I have been carefully observing the works of the plastic artist Walter L. L. Miranda in his excited career. A growing evolution is seen in his career, where in the oldest works was already latent the current work. In a brief analysis, we can see that the social and humanistic thematic was always a constant. The use of collage begins in 1977, the silhouettes, as well as his sprinkled/wrinkled painting style appear in 1981. The insertion of objects, as in his Falkland Islands war works, that becomes tridimensional, appears in 1982. In 1983, he begins to work with high and low relief and the geometrical composition, where each part is related with the others, that by itself are independent. Also in 1983, in the series 1984, George Orwell's stigma, besides the critic of the Brazilian economical politics when he stylizes the human illustrations (that are similar to robots), it is already foreseen his future discussion on the human massification in great scale. In the works of the Beethoven Symphonies series, we can notice the fusion of these many styles of artistic representation with abstract painting and colors research. More and more the themes of universal character appear in his works, as the people massification, the hungry, the injustice, etc. In 1986, he begins the long series "The Brave New World", where the social and ideological themes are joined with the global ecological question. With a work more abstract, with the constructivist composition and without losing the figurative, he works the themes in a more subjective way, allowing the spectator to reach his own conclusion. In this phase also appears the use of computers components and, deeply influenced by his mathematical and physical studies, he uses the Golden Section as basic tool of his compositions. In 1989, begins to use dead animals. In 1991 he innovates using perforated iron plate as support for his works. We can notice a constantly search for heterodox supports, that varies from his own handmade cardboard to the use of iron sheet and computer plate. In his works of 1992, he proposes, in a subtle way, although emphatic, the search of human balance with the technology, by the ballerinas representation. The work about Chief Seattle, Project Seattle-Exaltation Gaia, of 1996, is a very clear synthesis of an artistic career and a constant search for the justice, for the coherence of attitudes. It is a vision that show humility in the presence of the mother Earth - Gaia, present in all paintings of this series. The Man is questioned about the incoherence of his structureless development which has created his disintegration with nature. Always working in a clear way, meticulously composed and rich in details, the theme is developed at each picture by the rational fragmentation in rectangles as sub themes. The use of the logarithmic spiral unites the sub themes with his organic line that breaks the mathematical rigidity of the Golden Rectangles. Innovating, as always, and updated with his time, Walter begins inserting on his works digitized images, created and worked with great domain on graphic computation. In these works he begins an intense use of the colors and the research of textures, giving more vitality to the theme, that deals with the world ecology, without losing the opportunity of questioning the human attitude facing the social, ideological and technological problems, as well the search for solutions to the return to the global balance. In 1998, in the series Brave New Middle Age, he explores the timeless analogies of the world at the doors of the XXI century with the Middle Age. He faces, in an ironic and dramatic way, the technological world that did not get to extricate from the quality of (sub)life of the Middle Age. When showing the similarities of our time with the past, Walter makes social, economical, ecological, technological critic and above all philosophical critic. The series Brave New Middle Age is a good exercise of contemporary reflection about the quality (virtual, maybe) of the modern life. Those inquires appear in the pictures through the approach of opposite situations, new and old images on the different subjects in which resemble each of the two ages. The artist continues his debate on the human and social subjects. He also continues his pictorial research of composition, color, texture, insertion of objects and digitized images. The counterpoint in his works also happens when he uses the traditional technique of oil painting allied to the contemporary techniques of three-dimensional interferences and computer worked images. The plastic artist and the electronic artist coexist in the same plan, that is simultaneously bi and three-dimensional. And in the series Brave New Millennium, of 1999, he approaches philosophical, scientific, environmental, religious, mystics subjects, etc., regarding to the human situation in this beginning of third millennium, by using the oil painting and the virtual graphic computation, always allied to the incorporation of representative objects of the current technological moment (computer plates, diskettes), natural elements (leaves and seeds of plants) and objects of the daily (jewels, stamps, etc.). In this series, Walter gives one more innovative jump in his artistic development when uses only resources of the graphic computation starting to create some entirely virtual pictures that indeed only exist in the digital form (even with the possibility of impression), raising for the observer the subject on what is virtual and what is real. The controversy at this time is on how we are deceived by the senses, since the subtle difference between the real and the virtual begins mixing in several other situations of the daily modern life, to the point of the creation of the expression "virtual reality." As we can notice, his work continues joining from the previous works discussions, controversies, reflections and also the insertions of resurgent objects added to the new context in debate. It is a cumulative process of ideas, ideals and techniques, but with common goals. It is as, if Walter had the eager of acquiring and absorbing the whole mankind knowledge and experience to express through his work the need of the human dignity rescue. In the works of 2001, Walter retakes the development of the series Brave New Middle Age (revisited) using the child as theme to make comparisons among nowadays and the Middle Age, continuing his researches and his technical evolution of the use of the computer just as one more tool of artistic expression and not as the object of the Art itself. Another interesting work from 2001 is the Book of Gaia, composed of 3 computer boards united forming a book. Each board is a page, the first one, the book cover, approachs the Man's development from the prehistory to the Antiquity, the second one is about the period from the Antiquity to the Industrial Revolution and the last one is about the phase from the Industrial Revolution to the current days. The computer boards had theirs electronic components rearranged for best to dispose the figurative elements in the composition. Each page contains objects and/or images related to the theme as: in the cover - whetstone, cave paintings, wheat, cuneiform writing , solar eclipse; in the page two - mathematical spirals, human figure by Da Vinci, world map , mechanical pieces; in the last page - atomic mushroom, urubus on a junkyard, the clock destroyed by the bomb in Hiroshima, ozone hole. The own book of the Earth is a computation hardware, that has the function, and here it is the analogy, of filing and computing informations. Walter lifts the subject on the Man's bioevolutionary function to be perhaps a great stock of information and knowledge, forming all the humanity (the hardware) like a unique being that contains all the information (a great database, software) enough to compute the wisdom related to himself and to the planet. Walter's works are always incitant and reflexive. They take us time because we need to observe attentively the richness of information highly intricated and related to serious and deep subjects, that bring back the fruition of looking by hours to a piece of Art. Flávia Venturoli Miranda - May/2001 |
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