Márcia Britto (b.1962, Brazil)

Márcia Britto has a vast repertoire from working with visual means of expressions. When still very young she participated in a children's programme about art and design on Brazilian TV. Her studies specialising in Visual Communication at Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, led to the title Bacharel in Fine Art and Design in Sweden. After her studies she worked in advertising, animation and design in her native Brazil. Marcia's capabilities with images led to photography projects in the USA. In the 1990's whilst an active artist, she ran an artist group with several established artists in her atelier in Brazil. At the beginning of 2003 Marcia Britto moved to Sweden, obtained Swedish nationality and worked there for a few years. Then, from 2008 to 2010 she lived and worked in Switzerland and is now based in the Maltese islands, while continuing to exhibit internationally.

Early on in her artistic career and through the studies of life models and portraiture, her thoughts in simplification started. In this economy of line there were countless possibilities and the fundamental idea for the subject of Expressions was born. The face is the starting point in this theme of elementary features that are performed in various media such as etching, glass, stone and paintings with black ink on varieties of paper, sometimes hand-made by the artist herself.

In Expressions Márcia Britto works in a vigilant way to capture the essential in context. Balance, rhythm and well-judged proportions interact with the overall impression. The art works are bare and simplified. It is not the powerful and loud expression that the attention is aimed at but rather the subtle expression from the face that captures the sensibility with brush and ink. The observer encounters introvert, expectant and calm faces or faces with secretive smiles. The effect is great but with significantly gentle differences in their expression.

The pictures show as much sensibility as certainty. In this art there appears a plain ambition together with elegance and immediacy. It is the faces that fascinate in their simplicity. In some work there appears a red drop of glass which might bring love or blood to mind, but it actually associates beyond pain as an inspiration and force for creative expression. In Márcia Britto's work, sensibility and distinction come together in a focused hand with innovative brush work.

Inspired by her spiritual roots Márcia Britto began work on a new theme - Angels - where realms of gold, heaven and earth find their natural existence. Also here the artist works with simplified styles of design and small gestures that create great effect. In this glass universe, heaven and the underworld unite. The blue pigment leads the eye into eternal space and in the next second brings it back to earth. The red and brown pigment frames, encloses and protects. The Angels are made of gold. The material is loaded with associations where power, fortune and violence come together. These Angels, however disarm and convey a message of calmness and harmony. Here gold stands for shimmering divinity and purity. The glass object and the paintings create a tension where the angels are close but at the same time unreachable. In the paintings they are more tangible and physical. Body and soul unite.

adapted by Catherine Sinclair Galea
from observations by Swedish Art Critic Simon Berg