Aldemir Martins

Painter, engraver, draughtsman, illustrator.

The artist Aldemir Martins was born in Ingazeiras, in Vale do Cariri, Ceará on 8 November 1922. His vast body of work, which is extremely important for the panorama of plastic arts in Brazil, due to its technical quality and for interpreting the Brazilian "being", bears the mark of the landscape and the man of the North-East.

The artist's talent has been evident since his school days, when he was chosen to be the artistic advisor of his class. Aldemir Martins served in the army from 1941 to 1945, always developing his work in his free time. He even reached the curious rank of Corporal Painter. During this time, he frequented and stimulated the artistic scene in Ceará, and even took part in the creation of Grupo ARTYS and of SCAP - Sociedade Cearense de Artistas Plásticos (the Ceará Society of Visual Artists), together with other painters, such as Mário Barata, Antonio Bandeira and João Siqueira. 

In 1945, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and, in 1946, to São Paulo. With a restless spirit, the taste for the experience of travelling and getting to know other places is the mark of the painter, passionate about the interior of Brazil. In 1960/61, Aldemir Martins lived in Rome, before returning to Brazil for good. 

The artist has participated in several exhibitions in the country and abroad, revealing intense and fruitful artistic production. His technique covers various forms of expression, including painting, engraving, drawing, ceramics and sculpture on different supports. Aldemir Martins does not reject innovation and does not limit his work, surprising us by his constant experimentation: the artist has worked with the most varied types of surfaces, from small woods for cigar boxes, stationery, cards, linen, jute and various fabrics - sometimes without preparing the base of the canvas - to pizza tins, without losing the strong register that makes us recognize his work at first glance. 

His strong strokes and vibrant tones lend such vitality and strength to his production that they make it unmistakable and, more than that, significant for a people who perceive themselves in his paintings and drawings, always reworking their representations. Aldemir Martins can be defined as a Brazilian artist par excellence. Nature and the people of Brazil are his most present themes, painted and understood through intuition and affective memory. In his drawings of cangaceiros, fish, roosters, horses, landscapes, fruits and even in his series of cats, a blameless Brazilianness transpires that goes beyond the thematic axis and reaches the colours, lights, strokes and canvases of a culture. 

For this very reason, Aldemir is undoubtedly one of the best known artists and the closest to his people, moving between the artistic and the lay milieu and breaking barriers that cannot even limit an artist who is the very expression of a collectivity. 

He died on 5th February 2006, aged 83, at São Luís Hospital in São Paulo.

Por: Galeria Gravura Brasileira