Yareah Magazine

by Michael De Brito

To those who claim contemporary art should always be innovative and abstract: it should most crucially bereal. And for one, Michael De Brito’s paintings are real, to say the least.

For the past 5 years, 30-year old De Brito has been painting familiar homely family scenes and self portraits. The painter studied at Parsons School of Design and the New York Academy of Art. He received a Pollock Krasner grant, exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and is currently represented by the Eleanor Ittinger Gallery in New York.

Gifted with an immaculate painterly technique and of Portuguese origin, he has chosen to depict his personal life in such an emotive, intimate manner, which makes it difficult for others not to be touched by.

The featured characters in his realistic paintings are his relatives: his sister and his omnipresent grandmother, a radiant lady who seems to be a constant element in these warm, hospitable scenes of home cooked meals and vivid conversations with loved ones. However a diversity of convivial meals and a fragility of mundane meals when silence is apparent whilst faces look troubled is established in a sensible reflection.

The gaze of the viewer lingers over the action of the characters, either cooking, conversing or drinking. The backgrounds of his pieces are quite dark, the focal point being the people on the foreground.  I particularly like the intensity of contrast in colour and light in his oeuvre.

“O Final de uma Tradiçao” (2004, oil on canvas, 48x36), about the disappearing tradition of sausage making, depicts De Brito’s grandmother and a neighbour in her kitchen. This Portuguese ritual of preparing meat takes place about twice a year.

It’s only fair to state that De Brito’s artwork is honest and is made with a dedication which has become rare in this post modern society.

Read more:

http://www.yareah.com/magazine/index.php/arts-arte/557-difficulties-of-commenting-artworks-dificultades-para-comentar-obras-de-arte

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