MIRIAM INEZ DA SILVA: Art Basel Miami Beach 2024 | kabinett - Booth F6

Born in Trindade, a city in the Goiânia metro area that came into being in the wake of miracle reports, Miriam Inez da Silva drew upon her childhood for aesthetic references that would later become recurrent in her works, including clerical and mythological elements. In 1960, Miriam moves to Rio de Janeiro, as does much of Brazil's Midwestern and Northeastern population, in a big migration flow towards the Southeast. In Rio, she continues to pursue the Fine Arts studies she had begun in Goiás, honing her woodcut skills at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro with concrete artist Ivan Serpa as her teacher.     
            With her engraving work, Miriam joins two editions of the Bienal de São Paulo (1962 and 1964), two editions of the Bienal da Bahia (1966 and 1968), and one edition of the Santiago Engraving Biennial (1969). She gradually transitions away from the language, devoting herself almost exclusively to painting from 1970 onwards. During this period, Miriam's repertoire turns to aspects of Rio's urban culture such as bohemianism, popular music icons, drama, and political manifestations. In addition to recurrent Carnaval scenes depicting samba schools, she portrays the household and the family with a more intimist approach. Using cutout wood planks as her support, she creates paintings with a shared geometric element: their colorful edges. Usually in earthy tones, those edges emulate a frame, creating a white backdrop against which for her characters to take action.

Often reviewed by critics as naïve, intuitive, simple, and primitive, Miriam's work boasts a complex repertoire that does not conform to the bounds of what "popular art" is presumed to be. In fact, her body of work highlights her intentions, her malice, and her transgressions, making it clear that she was a keen observer of people, Brazilian society and the micropolitics of the urban social fabric. On this occasion, Gomide&Co looks to present a selection of artworks designed to enable a reading of her oeuvre based on recent research into the vast existing documentation concerning her career.