Isabel De Jesus (Cabo Verde MG 1938)
She considered following a religious vocation, but decided to try to become a nurse and, with this aim, moved to São Paulo. While working in the home of the artist Iracema Arditi, she awakened to the art of painting in 1964 and, two years later, held her first solo exhibition at Galeria Vernon, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1972, she travelled to France with Iracema, who introduced her to the Parisian art world, and she held a solo exhibition at the Galerie Séraphine. On that occasion, she received glowing praise from the world expert in naïve art, Anatole Jakovsky. Awarded on several occasions, Isabel de Jesus held solo exhibitions at Galeria Jean-Jacques, Rio de Janeiro (1985), and at Galeria Jacques Ardies, São Paulo (1980, 1983, 1989, 1993, 2001, 2014), and took part in a significant number of group exhibitions in Brazil and abroad. Isabel de Jesus's art is unique. Like few others, she masters the technique of gouache on paper. First, she wets the paper and throws on the colors to obtain a colored background; in the next stage, with a fine brush and dark color, she draws her fantastic world, letting herself be guided by an imagination free of any imposition or formal rules. The result is an intimate, spontaneous and inventive art. Her work is cited in several art books, among them one by the renowned art critic Jacob Klintowitz, “Mestres do Desenho Brasileiro” [Masters of Brazilian Drawing] (1983), which included Isabel de Jesus among 27 renowned Brazilian modernists such as Aldemir Martins, Cícero Dias, Volpi and Di Cavalcanti, among others.
Source: Guia das Artes
