Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias

About

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Brazilian artist Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias (1940–2011) that will open this autumn at the gallery’s location in London. The works on view, all completed between 1996 and 2004, were formerly in the collection of the Museu Internacional de Arte Naïf (MIAN), Rio de Janeiro, which was founded by Lucien Finkelstein, the preeminent collector of Ozias’s work. This is the first time that Ozias’s work will be shown in the United Kingdom and is among the first solo presentations of his art outside of Brazil.

A self-taught, imaginative artist, Ozias was born and raised in a rural area of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He began painting in earnest when he was in his mid-forties, embracing the practice as an escape from his daily administrative work for the federal railroad company. He later became an evangelical minister and began to concentrate on painting Brazilian and biblical narratives. Many of his paintings portray rural life and Afro-Brazilian religious rituals in the country landscape where he spent his childhood, while another body of work depicts the famous communal parades of Rio de Janeiro’s annual Carnival. Featuring Ozias’s signature style—simplified yet dynamic compositions characterised by bold colours and repeated patterns—the paintings in this exhibition capture the artist’s interest in spiritual themes of piety and rapture alongside scenes of revelrous celebration, together illustrating Ozias’s distinctive interpretation of the traditions of his native Brazil. 

Ozias frequently painted on panels of Eucatex—a high-density wood-fibre sheeting used for manufacturing and furniture—or Formica, which he took from discard piles in his office. Using a variety of tools, including toothbrushes, toothpicks, his fingers, and a rough brush made by chewing the end of a wooden stick, the artist applied oil or acrylic paint to render compositions in bold, flat colours, often accentuated with black and white. Resourceful and fast-working, he soon committed to painting as much as possible, later recalling: “As I didn’t know how to paint, I worked on many pictures at the same time, trying not to forget all ideas that came to mind.”1

Several paintings on view depict rituals of Afro-Brazilian religious traditions, including some surrealist scenes that suggest dreamlike visions and manifestations of spiritual lore. A Black Brazilian, Ozias was especially attuned to the practices of Candomblé—a faith developed by enslaved Africans and their descendents, combining elements of several West African religions and influences from Catholicism. It recognizes a pantheon of deities known as orixás, many associated with Catholic saints. Compositions such as Aparição (The Apparition) (2002) feature devotional themes of rapture and exaltation, while scenes like A cerimônia (The Ceremony) (2000) depict Candomblé rituals of offering, sacrifice, and prayer. Another group of paintings illustrate the famous Carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro, held annually before Lent, incorporating the dancing lines of costumed samba schools, the iconic figures of baianas in headwraps and full skirts, and the throngs of spectators that gather to watch and celebrate. In these works, groups of costumed revellers crowd the street, their simplified, wide-eyed faces forming a homogenous grid-like throng that fills the picture and conveys the teeming festivity of the iconic Brazilian holiday. A third body of work comprises scenes of farm labour and rural recreation, situated in the agricultural landscape of the artist’s childhood. 

Most paintings are executed in a landscape format with a visible horizon line, while some pictures forgo any perspectival markers entirely, with figures appearing suspended against a field of colour. In many agricultural and spiritual scenes, Ozias enlivens the surrounding atmosphere with layered, impressionist brushwork. Clearly defined forms emerge from backgrounds that are punctuated by dry strokes, often used by Ozias to depict light emanating from the sun, moon, or stars, as well as to provide depth to bodies of water and cloudy skies. Semi-abstract passages of repeated geometric patterns and subtly varied shades contrast with the opaque jewel tones that define the figures. With a signature formal vocabulary, Ozias emphasises the two-dimensionality of his paintings through colour and flattened perspective. Imbued with the joy of regional traditions and the mysticism of religious rituals, the works on view coalesce into a vibrant portrait of Ozias’s Brazil and reveal the artist’s extraordinary vision of his country’s customs and culture. 

Lucien Finkelstein (1931–2008) had been collecting Ozias’s work for at least a decade by the time he founded MIAN in 1995 (the museum permanently closed in 2016). A successful jeweller, Finkelstein was born in France and emigrated to Brazil in 1948, soon developing a passion for naïve art, a term initially used to describe the work of French self-taught modernist artist Henri Rousseau (1844–1910). Amassing approximately six thousand works by an international group of artists, Finkelstein came to hold one of the most important independent collections of naïve art in the world and was the preeminent collector of Ozias’s work.