Atipografia gallery is not afraid to dare, and it is keen to let us know. On the occasion of the first European exhibition of the young Brazilian artist Tarcísio Veloso, the Vicenza gallery embraces figurative art for the first time.
The eyes are the mirror of the soul. “Nothing new“, someone would say, “just an old – and sometimes cheesy – saying”. Sclera, iris, and pupil have fascinated and inspired artists and poets since the dawn of time. In cultures, myths and popular beliefs around the world, the eye is never just a visual organ, but a vessel of deeper symbols and meanings; from the Egyptian Eye of Ra, symbol of protection and prosperity, and the Nazar, always vigilant against the evil, to esotericism and Freemasonry. Art is certainly no exception, and we are reminded of that by the Modigliani eyes, apparently empty as if they were direct windows to the soul, or the painter Margaret Keane, famous for her subjects with disproportionate eyes, not to mention the intriguing and destabilising gaze of the Mona Lisa or the countless canvases in which surrealist artists have made the eyes their main obscure subjects.
UNVEILING TARCÍSIO VELOSO’S FIRST MAJOR EXHIBITION IN EUROPE
Brazilian artist Tarcísio Veloso lands in Europe for the first time with the exhibition Olhares (“gazes” in Portuguese), a series of paintings in which the bond that is established between the subjects and the observer is both captivating and disturbing. The exhibition unfolds in the premises of Atipografia, founded by Elena Dal Molin – co-curator of Olhares with Alessandra Venditti – in Arzignano (Vicenza), and marks a new milestone for the gallery. “Olhares represents a deviation from the program of Atipografia, which revolves around minimalism. I had been looking for a figurative artist for a long time, until I met Tarcísio thanks to the large Brazilian community well-rooted in our territory”, says Dal Molin. “What struck me is the quality of his painting, inspired by the classical style but at the same time extremely contemporary”, concludes the founder. His paintings portray intimate and profound human stories, while possessing a horizontality that brings them closer to the universal experience of life, including pains, joys, and daily challenges.
MAGIC REALISM AND SYMBOLISM IN VELOSO’S WORKS
The subjects are decontextualized human or mythological figures that draw on Magic Realism in terms of stylistic codes, language, and atmospheres, but possess a classical statuary quality. As in many Renaissance and late Renaissance paintings, light plays a prominent role, revealing technical and symbolic aspects; most of the subjects are placed in bright, almost overexposed settings, but the clever use of chiaroscuro and shadows provide them with intimacy and mystery. Olhares opens with Uma Deusa Bruxa Fada (2024), where a woman holds the hand of a little girl dressed in purple whose gaze captures the attention of anyone who intercepts it. On her head she has a pointed witch’s hat and in her hand, she holds a magic wand. The two female subjects are surrounded by many symbolic elements: an owl representing conscience, a cat a metaphor for instinct, and the cloud above their heads, a warning for the uncertain times that we all go through in our lives.
DUALITY, MAGIC AND QUEER CULTURE: RECURRENT THEMES IN VELOSO’S ENIGMATIC PAINTINGS
The exhibition continues with Aquele que se esconde no subconsciente (2024), an invitation to the public to consider the duality of the human being between goodness and evil, a recurring theme in Veloso’s enigmatic paintings such as Inocente? (2024) and Mediadores (2023). Each work depicts an experience, an emotion, an aspect of the artist’s life through the filter of his personal artistic language. And so, we come across paintings with great emotional impact such as Piabinha (2024) in which its magical and mysterious protagonist pays the price of its exceptionality with loneliness, or Viado (2024) which denounces the discrimination against the queer community in Brazil.
A GLIMPSE OF THE EXHIBITION SET-UP
Olhares is a journey into Veloso’s intimacy that resonates in our eyes and hearts. It disturbs, intrigues, and ultimately reassures us about the universality of our internal turmoil. The exhibition set-up designed by Dal Molin and Venditti is also powerful in its elegant discretion and sees Veloso’s figurative works, rich in symbols, colour, and pictorial techniques, clash with the minimalism of the modernist architecture that hosts the gallery. Except for a couple of paintings hanging on the walls, all the works are supported by easels covered with long pink drapes that enhance the artist’s message: what lies beneath them? Are reality, the world, our lives and those of others reduced exclusively to what we can see?
TRACING NEW PATHS: ATIPOGRAFIA’S REBIRTH
With this exhibition – on show until 5 January 2025 – Atipografia takes a big risk by moving away from its consolidated path which includes in its roster of artists Arcangelo Sassolino, Stefano Mario Zatti, Josh Rowell, among others. Founded in 2014 in a former printing house, Atipografia reopened in May 2022 with renovated spaces and a new cultural project that combines the commercial dimension of a gallery with the vocation of a cultural association. With Veloso, the gallery has in fact regained the dimension of artistic residence that had characterised its first years of activity. Most of the works on display were created from scratch or refined in the small town of Arzignano, where life flows slowly and everyone greets each other in the street. And I wonder: what if this is the future of contemporary art, far from the now saturated large urban centres where human contact has sadly taken a back seat?
LINK
- NINETY PERCENT OF EVERYTHING: Interview with the curator Maria Pina Usai - October 2, 2026
- Christina Nakou: the fragility of matter as a metaphor for the human condition - July 3, 2026
- The Island: Hito Steyerl at Osservatorio Fondazione Prada in Milan - December 19, 2025
