Mônica Nador (Ribeirão Preto SP 1955)
Mônica Nador is a painter, draftswoman and printmaker. She graduated in 1983 from the Faculdade de Artes Plásticas of the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP) in São Paulo. Two years later, she took the planographic printmaking course with Regina Silveira (1939) at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (ECA/USP). She held her first solo exhibition at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC/USP) in 1983. In 1994, she received a scholarship from the Mid-America Alliance and traveled to the United States.
Back in Brazil, she was awarded the Bolsa Vitae de Artes grant in visual arts in 1999 for the project Paredes Pinturas [Walls Paintings]. That same year, in partnership with the residents of Vila Rhodia, in São José dos Campos, São Paulo, she developed the project Paredes Pinturas, which involved creating designs on acetate stencils that were painted on the houses of the neighborhood. The following year, she earned her master's degree from ECA/USP with the dissertation Paredes Pinturas, supervised by Regina Silveira.
Critical Commentary
In paintings from the early 1980s, Mônica Nador produced large canvases with stripes juxtaposed across the field of the canvas, consistently using muted tones. The viewer perceives small slivers of light in the dark weave of paint, coming from the white of the fabric, which the artist sometimes leaves exposed. She thus explores not only the relationships between areas of color, but also an interplay between figure and ground. From the middle of that decade, her palette broadened and brightened. The artist began attaching other canvases to her canvases (lighter, with more frayed stripes), creating illusory spaces and discussing the procedures and possibilities of painting.
As art historian Tadeu Chiarelli notes, Mônica Nador began to work with color as space, in canvases that present, besides free brushstrokes, areas intensely ornamented with arabesques, as in the series Para Orar [To Pray] (1989). In works from this period, she began to evoke a mystical sense of art. In Mergulhe [Dive In] (1991) and other works from the 1990s, she uses the word as a suggested path through which the viewer arrives at the enjoyment of the work of art.
From 1999, Mônica Nador practically abandoned the production of traditional art works and turned to making large mural paintings in underprivileged communities, where she went to live. She creates paintings on the façades of homes, working together with their residents and starting from decorative motifs. The artist draws great motivation from the local population, setting out to transform the reality of the place and exploring the transformative potential of art, as in the project Paredes Pinturas, carried out in São José dos Campos, São Paulo.
Critiques
"(...) in Mônica's canvases, in minimalist, rectangular, trapezoidal and other large formats, on which a dense pictorial weave of intense tones, with black dominant, is obsessively elaborated in a controlled, regular calligraphy. A painting that does not offer itself, but rather asks the viewer to tune in, in order to be sensitized, optically as well, to its perception. And, as the viewer draws closer, a revealing of spaces through slits of light, in chromatic delicacies where the pictorial weave frays, amounts to discoveries of a purely visual, directed delight".
Aracy Amaral
SEIS artistas. São Paulo: MAC/USP, 1985.
"(...) On the one hand, there are paintings and drawings resulting from a presumably expressive gesturality, converted, however, into a monotonous, almost mechanical operation (...) but on the other hand there are also canvases that resort to representation from a 'cold' position, as quotation, from the inescapable two-dimensionality of painting, in short. Some of these examples thus indicate that the artist's work has been building and asserting its importance throughout the 1980s, occupying, moreover, an extremely singular position, considering the neo-expressionist dominance in much of the painting of this decade. (...) The most immediate interest of this work in the MAC collection lies in the format of the canvas, which seems to hold a greater fascination for the artist as form than as a surface to be covered with color. Here the thick black weave, insistently repeated, is what reinforces and identifies the investigation of formats. It is perhaps an expansion of the pictorial surface toward an architecture of the space in which the aesthetic object is inevitably inscribed, a procedure that leads the viewer to hesitate between the ideal limits of the 'picture' and the full grasp of all the relationships that are immediately established in space and impose a new scale on it".
Marco Antonio Tabet/Sônia Salzstein Goldberg
AMARAL, Aracy A. (org.). Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo: perfil de um acervo. São Paulo: Techint Engenharia: Ex Libris, 1988.
Solo Exhibitions
1983 - São Paulo SP - Drawings, at MAC/USP
1987 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1988 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1990 - São Paulo SP - Engaged Art, at Galeria Casa Triângulo
1994 - DeKalb (United States) - Solo, at School of Art Gallery, Northern Illinois University (in collaboration with James Lax)
1994 - Philadelphia (United States) - Solo, at Nexus Foundation for Today's Art (in collaboration with James Lax)
1994 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1995 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Casa Thomas Jefferson (in collaboration with James Lax)
1995 - Curitiba PR - Solo, at Fundação Cultural de Curitiba (in collaboration with James Lax)
1995 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at CCSP (in collaboration with James Lax)
1996 - São Paulo SP - Wall for Nelson Leirner, at MAM/SP
2003 - São Paulo SP - Observations on Space and Time, at Unicsul
Group Exhibitions
1983 - São Paulo SP - 17th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1983 - São Paulo SP - Outdoor Piscada [Blink Billboard], in the Arte na Rua 1 project, organized by MAC/USP
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - How Are You, Geração 80?, at EAV/Parque Lage
1985 - Belo Horizonte MG - Brazil Drawing, at Paço das Artes
1985 - Campinas SP - Brazil Drawing, at MACC
1985 - Porto Alegre RS - Brazil Drawing, at Margs
1985 - Ribeirão Preto SP - To Draw, at Itaugaleria
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil Drawing, at Funarte
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Calligraphy and Writings, at Funarte
1985 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - Group show, at MAC/USP
1985 - São Paulo SP - And Drawing? and Contemporary Graphics, at Galeria Humberto
1986 - Cali (Colombia) - 5th American Biennial of Graphic Arts, at Museu de Arte Moderna de La Tertulia
1986 - Fortaleza CE - Imagine: The Planet Greets the Comet, at Arte Galeria
1986 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - São Paulo SP - Group show, at MAC/USP
1988 - Berlin (Germany) - Berlin/São Paulo Workshop, at Kunsthalle Berlin
1988 - São Paulo SP - Action at MAM, at MAM/SP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Eduardo Brandão Private Collection, at Galeria Casa Triângulo
1988 - São Paulo SP - MAC 25 Years: Recent Acquisitions and Donations, at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Berlin/São Paulo Workshop, at Masp
1989 - Porto Alegre RS - Hybrid Art, at Espaço Cultural BFB
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Hybrid Art, at Fundação Nacional de Arte. Centro de Artes
1989 - São Paulo SP - 20th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1989 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art São Paulo - Recent Perspectives, at CCSP
1989 - São Paulo SP - Hybrid Art, at MAM/SP
1989 - São Paulo SP - The Small Infinite and the Great Circumscribed, at Arco Arte Contemporânea Galeria Bruno Musatti
1990 - Brasília DF - Brasília Visual Arts Award, at MAB/DF
1990 - São Paulo SP - 21st Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1991 - São Paulo SP - 21st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1991 - São Paulo SP - BR/80 Brazilian Painting of the 1980s, at Itaugaleria
1991 - São Paulo SP - Visual Arts Exhibition Program, at CCSP
1992 - Poços de Caldas MG - Brazilian Modern Art: Collection of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, at Casa da Cultura
1992 - São Paulo SP - Group show, at MAC/USP
1992 - São Paulo SP - Annual Visual Arts Exhibition Program 91, at Fundação Bienal
1992 - São Paulo SP - A Look at the Figurative, at Galeria Casa Triângulo
1993 - Washington (United States) - Brazil Images of the 80th & 90th, at Art Museum of the Americas
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil: Images of the 1980s and 1990s, at MAM/RJ
1994 - San Juan (Puerto Rico) - Latin American Small Format 94, at Galeria Luigi
1994 - São Paulo SP - Brazil: Images of the 1980s and 1990s, at Casa das Rosas
1994 - São Paulo SP - Seascapes, at Galeria Nara Roesler
1995 - Curitiba PR - Prints in Collaboration with James Lax, at Museu da Gravura
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The 1980s: The Stage of Diversity, at MAM/RJ
1995 - São Paulo SP - 1st United Artists, at Casa das Rosas
1995 - São Paulo SP - The 1980s: The Stage of Diversity, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1995 - São Paulo SP - Annual Visual Arts Exhibition Program, at CCSP
1995 - Uberlândia MG - Art in the City, at Universidade Federal de Uberlândia
1996 - São Paulo SP - 15 Brazilian Artists, at MAM/SP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Contemporary Art: Recent Donations/96, at MAM/SP
1997 - São Paulo SP - Cubed, at Paço das Artes
1997 - São Paulo SP - Art Support Computer, at Casa das Rosas
1997 - São Paulo SP - Brito Cimino Arte Contemporânea: Inaugural Exhibition, at Galeria Brito Cimino
1997 - São Paulo SP - Catalog: Represented Artists and Collections
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Modern and the Contemporary in Brazilian Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection - MAM/RJ, at Masp
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, at Banco Safra
1999 - São Paulo SP - 26th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
2000 - Belo Horizonte MG - Investigations. Are They or Aren't They Prints?, at Itaú Cultural
2000 - Brasília DF - Investigations. Are They or Aren't They Prints?, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2000 - Curitiba PR - Curitiba Printmaking Show. Marks of the Body, Folds of the Soul
2000 - Fortaleza CE - 26th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura
2000 - Havana (Cuba) - 7th Havana Biennial, at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam
2000 - Niterói RJ - 26th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAC/Niterói
2000 - São Paulo SP - Dialogue: Contemporary Art Brazil/Ecuador, at Memorial da América Latina. Galeria Marta Traba
2001 - São Paulo SP - 27th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
2001 - Washington (United States) - Virgin Territory: Women, Gender, and History in Contemporary Brazilian Art, at The National Museum of Women in the Arts
2002 - Londrina PR - Are They or Aren't They Prints?, at Museu de Arte de Londrina
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 27th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/RJ
2002 - Salvador BA - 27th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/BA
2002 - São Paulo SP - Line as the Structure of Form, at MAM/SP
2003 - São Paulo SP - 2080, at MAM/SP
2003 - São Paulo SP - My Friends, at MAM/SP
2003 - São Paulo SP - Prestes Maia Occupation, at Av. Prestes Maia, 853
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Where Are You, Geração 80?, at CCBB
Source: Itaú Cultural
