Dalva Maria de Barros (Cuiabá MT 1935)
Painter.
She began her studies in painting through a correspondence course run by the Instituto Universal Brasileiro, in the town of Diamantino, Mato Grosso, in 1959. The following year she attended an open painting course at the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado - Faap, in São Paulo, and, between 1968 and 1970, the Escola de Belas Artes - EBA/UFRJ, in Rio de Janeiro. From 1976 to 1980 she supervised the Ateliê Livre [Open Studio] of the Fundação Cultural de Mato Grosso and, in 1982, the Ateliê Livre of the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, UFMT, both in Cuiabá.
Critiques
"At this historical moment of the expansion of the frontiers of civilization, in the great demographic void of Mato Grosso, there is the imminent danger of the loss of regional cultural values. Dalva is one of the rare figures who, owing to her unchanging provincial view of the world, can bequeath us a pure portrait of our society in transition. Simple in every expression of her attitudes, Dalva witnesses progress and paints it without conflict for herself or her art. She is the reporter-painter of Cuiabá, of street scenes, panoramic views, unique moments, various events, everyday occurrences. Landscapes, portraits and interiors. She records these moments through an admirable naïve realism. Realism because she does not let doses of fantasy, emphatic drama or artifices that might distort the truthfulness of the scene show through. But, faithful to the truth of her naïve eye, she is incapable of painting what she has not seen or does not see. She does not display formal exactitude, or in other words, she does not paint 'neatly', nor does she get lost in minute detail, thus avoiding a slide into academicism. Her perspective is distorted. Pronounced, yet not outrageous, this distortion reveals the naïve flavor of the painting. Even when she tries to disguise it, the artist Dalva pours out her wonderful naïveté before life and the complicated things of today's world. (...)"
Aline Figueiredo
DALVA Maria de Barros. Apresentação de Aline Figueiredo. Cuiabá: Palácio da Instrução, 1977.
"Unlike Espíndola and João Sebastião, especially in their current phases, Dalva de Barros is shy, delicate and fragile. With tiny brushstrokes, she builds up rich textures in her small pictures, in which she keeps 'her provincial view of the world unchanged', painting 'the last flashes of a province that is fading away', as Aline Figueiredo observed. But without any revolt, without criticism, without touches of irony. On the contrary, she sees the world with emotion, with naïve and pure eyes, without ranking values, as if everything and everyone were good, honest, pure. (...) Few painters in Brazil can have painted a beach on a busy Sunday with as much emotion and delicacy as Dalva has. She has the sensitivity of a Guignard or a Rebolo. Her post-impressionism has many affinities with that of the Volpi of the 1930s. Those who are in a hurry, or who do not keep within themselves the province that vanished with their youth, will not like Dalva. But those who, like her, have replaced revolt with love, intellectualism with simplicity, extroversion with shyness, will be as enchanted before her small pictures as she is before the world. (...)"
Frederico Morais
BRASIL/Cuiabá: pintura cabocla. Textos de Frederico Morais e Aracy Amaral. Rio de Janeiro: MAM, 1981.
Solo Exhibitions
1966 - Cuiabá MT - First solo exhibition
1975 - Aquidauana MT - Solo, at Museu de Aquidauana
1977 - Cuiabá MT - Solo, at Fundação Cultural de Mato Grosso
Group Exhibitions
1966 - Campo Grande MS - 1ª Exposição dos Artistas Mato-Grossenses [1st Exhibition of Mato Grosso Artists] - bronze medal
1968 - Cuiabá MT - Mostra Grupo Jovem Mato-Grossense [Young Mato Grosso Group Exhibition], organized by the Associação Mato-Grossense de Artes - travel prize to Rio de Janeiro
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - National Salon of Fine Arts
1974 - São Paulo SP - National Biennial 74, at Fundação Bienal
1974 - Cuiabá MT - Exhibition, at Museu de Arte e de Cultura Popular da UFMT
1979 - Curitiba PR - 36th Paraná Salon
1981 - Cuiabá MT - Brasil Cuiabá: pintura cabocla [Brazil Cuiabá: Caboclo Painting], at Museu de Arte e Cultura Popular da UFMT
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil Cuiabá: pintura cabocla [Brazil Cuiabá: Caboclo Painting], at MAM/RJ
1981 - São Paulo SP - Brasil Cuiabá: pintura cabocla [Brazil Cuiabá: Caboclo Painting], at MAM/SP
1981 - Brasília DF - Brasil Cuiabá: pintura cabocla [Brazil Cuiabá: Caboclo Painting], at Fundação Cultural do Distrito Federal
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Referências Pantaneiras na Pintura de Mato Grosso e de Mato Grosso do Sul [Pantanal References in the Painting of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul], at Solar Grandjean de Montigny
1988 - São Paulo SP - Referências Pantaneiras na Pintura de Mato Grosso e Mato Grosso do Sul [Pantanal References in the Painting of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul], at Paço das Artes
1989 - Cuiabá MT - Exhibition, at Museu de Arte e de Cultura Popular da UFMT
1992 - São Paulo SP - A Cor do Mato [The Color of the Bush], at Galerie Alliance Française
2000 - Cuiabá MT - Projeto Grandeolhar [Grandeolhar Project], at Terminal Rodoviário de Cuiabá
Source: Itaú Cultural
