Véio (Nossa Senhora da Glória, Sergipe, 1947)
Sculptor.
Cícero Alves dos Santos was given the nickname Véio ("old man") by other children because he liked listening to the conversations of his elders. A fascination with the tales and legends of sertão culture stays with the artist throughout his life. These stories form the basis of his work and of his relationship with the world. In the neighboring municipality of Feira Nova (Sergipe), at Sítio Soarte, he created the Museu do Sertão, bringing together a collection of 17,000 works that retell the ways of life and production of the sertanejo and preserve the popular culture of the region.
“I'm not one to copy, like a parrot,” says Véio, who never studied art nor had teachers, but has always devoted himself to it with determination. As a boy, in breaks from work in the fields, he molded small figures in beeswax. Because he regarded the activity as “playing with dolls,” he would undo the sculptures whenever an adult approached. Over time, he abandoned wax and adopted wood as his raw material. But he does not cut down trees to obtain it. On the contrary: his preservationist instinct led him to acquire the last stretch of virgin forest in the region. “I give life to what is already dead,” he says1.
With a strong creative drive, he devotes himself exclusively to his sculptures, a decision met with puzzlement by his family and acquaintances. He chose an austere life and is proud of never having worked for anyone else and of refusing to sell his works when he judges that the buyer does not value them. In other words, he never compromises his art to ensure his survival, nor does he regard his artistic work as a mere means of making a living.
The sculptor was one of those chosen for the Prêmio Itaú Cultural 30 Anos, held in 2017, to highlight artists who have made an impact on the Brazilian cultural scene in recent decades. With a clear and fertile working method, he divides his works into two groups. “The larger, colorful pieces are showy, they speak loudly. They are visible from a distance and create clearings around them, even when crammed together, as happens in his storeroom, workshop and museum. The smaller ones, which preserve the texture of raw wood, are discreet, they speak softly,” sum up Carlos Augusto Calil (1951) and Agnaldo Farias (1955), curators of the artist's retrospective held in 2018 at Itaú Cultural2.
The larger works are made from "open trunks,” as Véio calls the pieces of wood whose angles and shapes suggest to him the path to follow. To them he adds industrial colors, vibrant and intense, which give the sculptures coherence and, according to the critic Rodrigo Naves (1955), produce a “pop effect.” These anthropomorphic figures, which spring from the artist's imagination when he comes into contact with the piece to be carved, can hardly be reduced to folk art.
According to the critic Ronaldo Brito (1949), Véio's works escape the mimetic virtuosity characteristic of this kind of production and come close to issues proper to modern and contemporary art3. Besides the restraint of gesture and the striking colors, these works question the very notion of the space of art. Véio distributes his strange figures around the property as if they were its inhabitants and refers to them as bearers of history and life. But the appearance of these sculptures changes easily, depending on where and in what position they are placed. “Lying down, she was asking for help; standing up, she wanted to hug me”4, the artist explains when talking about the sensations the original wood conveys to him and which, in a way, are preserved in the final piece.
The second group comprises the carvings made from "closed woods,” as Véio calls the less suggestive trunks, straighter and suited to more imaginative, detailed carvings closer to the real world. These works are smaller, sometimes the size of a matchstick head. The difference in size, however, does not seem important to the artist: the small pieces also belong to the world of narrative and are like anecdotes told by the artist.
What I want “is to show art lovers that it is measured neither by size nor by weight.” What matters is “its feeling, its form of expression.” Some themes recur: domestic scenes, with mothers and their children, the toil of artisans and country people, neglect of culture and the powerless loneliness of Indigenous peoples.
Véio also opens himself to the torrent of myths and legends of northeastern culture and delights the public with his blend of fantasy and dexterity. In the series Os Cão do Meu Inferno [The Dogs of My Hell], he depicts devilish beings in an intense black tone. He also depicts clowns and recreates the narratives and imagination of the unlettered people, which he has listened to, enraptured, since he was a boy.
Notes
1 Testimony in Véio, documentary by Adelina Pontual (2005).
2 CALIL, Carlos Augusto; FARIAS, Agnaldo. Véio – A Imaginação da Madeira. São Paulo: Itaú Cultural, 2018, p.35.
3 Conversa em torno da exposição Véio – De Surpresa no Mundo, 16 jun. 2017. Disponível em < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43L0888NfKw >. Acesso em: 23 mar. 2018.
4 NAVES, Rodrigo. Cícero Alves dos Santos [Véio] – Esculturas. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2014, p.150.
Source: Itaú Cultural
