Opera Gallery announces global representation of Gustavo Nazareno
09 August 2024
Opera Gallery is proud to announce the global representation of Brazilian artist Gustavo Nazareno with his inaugural solo exhibition curated by Samuele Visentin, ‘Orixás: Personal Tales on Portraiture,’ at our London location from October 8 to November 9, 2024.
Nazareno’s work is based upon fables that he writes, which draw inspiration from the pantheon of Orixás - a system of entities worshipped in religions in some parts of Africa and Latin America. Creating a new body of work for this exhibition, Nazareno’s 16 paintings and 25 charcoal drawings incorporate wide-ranging influences, from the characteristics and traditions of Afro-Latin religions such as Candomblé, Santería and Voodoo, to the aesthetics of fashion photography.
Nazareno’s process incorporates elements of textile arts and set design to create tableau vivants. He uses these as references to visually depict his fables, which explore the synchronicity between the human and the divine. His work examines the use of religious iconography, society’s proclivity towards worship, and the space between good and evil that the Candomblé religion’s principles celebrate within human nature.
Nazareno often uses figuration to represent the protagonists that inhabit his visual universe. These imaginary figures resist fixed identities and transcend age and gender without adhering to binary categories. Wearing majestic dresses and ornamentation, these characters evoke the pageantry of fashion photography while embracing the chiaroscuro technique characteristic of Caravaggio and other Renaissance and Baroque Artists. Through a unique painting and drawing technique where Nazareno applies charcoal dust with his fingertips on paper in his dark studio lit by only candlelight, his works evoke a mysterious tenebrism in form and content. The anatomical poses struck by Nazareno’s characters is contrasted with piercing gazes, engaging with the viewer as an act of sensual and provocative defiance.
“I have been manifesting this show since I started understanding my purpose in art – to elaborate my faith, my passions, and my universe” said Nazareno. “To exhibit in such a big and important city in my life, where most of my references were born, is a true celebration. The entire narrative of this show takes me back to 2018 when I first arrived in São Paulo. I had to study the Orixás for a commission, and in exchange, I received a studio to paint in. This show is based on that beginning, and it also represents a new beginning with Opera Gallery, both for me and for them.”
Curator Samuele Visentin added “I first encountered Nazareno work in 2021, on the occasion of his first solo show outside of Brazil. I was drawn to the sharp contour of his matte charcoal shapes on smooth white paper, guided by a moon-glow shine that filtered through and revealed to me the outlines of his Bará series. In this new body of work, Gustavo reminds us of the importance of being found in a personal sense of divinity, giving shape to a pantheon of Orixás whose posture and presence embody and celebrate the visual syncretism of Candomblé. I believe that living in the shadow of today’s world events calls for a growing need of spiritual grounding and Gustavo, in the privacy of his own studio, paints the return of the gaze to an inner dimension.”
Opera Gallery CEO, Isabelle de La Bruyère, remarked, “The most exciting artists are the ones that draw on a complex web of influences, from the recognisable to the obscure, to create a new and distinctive visual language. Gustavo Nazareno does exactly this, incorporating elements from Afro-Brazilian religions, fashion photography and Renaissance paintings into his work. We are delighted to mark the beginning of his representation with Opera Gallery by presenting his biggest exhibition in London to date.”
In the spring of 2026, Gustavo Nazareno will have a solo exhibition curated by Danny Dunson at The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
