For more than ten years, Chivitz has been intervening in the street as an urban artist, carving out a name for himself on the São Paulo underground art scene with works intrinsically tied to graffiti and tattooing. Creator of a hybrid language that moves between these two fields of painting and settles on a variety of supports, the artist presents works with an unmistakable aesthetic, marked by the use of lilac, gray, black, white and magenta. The originality of his style stems from his experience of the urban atmosphere of skateboarding and hip hop and other interfaces of the city, which constantly stimulate his creative mind.
Since the beginning of his work as a graffiti artist, his works have focused on a figurative style of painting, dominated by eerie puppets and ghostly figures with humorous, sarcastic features. The seemingly calm, placid appearance of his characters is easily called into question by their facial expressions and body language, which reveal personalities charged with a sinister malice peculiar to the world of the street.
There is clearly a play of opposites in his works, expressed sometimes through the colors used, sometimes through the subject matter. Black represents a depressive, oppressive negativity that reinforces the dark universe of the characters.
By contrast, the use of violet and lilac restores the balance of the scene and purifies the characters' spirits. The subject matter of his works is also permeated by two kinds of reality: the first, dreamlike, in which the characters inhabit psychedelic settings and find themselves in unreal situations, and a second corresponding to mundane reality, surrounded by concrete elements of everyday life. This aesthetic conveys a deathly yet lively universe, capable of drawing smiles from the audience.
Chivitz shows talent in the various aesthetic strands of graffiti, from his bombs, marked by his own symbols spelling out “Chiv”, to the production of very large murals. The artist is also innovative in the typography of his works, whose letters have roots in traditional graffiti and São Paulo pixação.
His works can also be seen in urban art galleries scattered around the city. The artist's performances have gained notoriety in another artistic sphere, cinema, where he has appeared as a prominent character in recent Brazilian films: “O Magnata” and “Inversão”, as well as the international “Blindness”, whose release date is still undetermined. His work in video extends to the series “Os Queixeiras”, of which he is director, editor and producer. The series humorously depicts everyday situations experienced by fellow graffiti artists, narrated by their own faces shown upside down in the video and illustrated by the artist himself.
Text: Rick Kubota
Chivitz
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