NOTTINGHAM.- Nottingham Contemporary is presenting the first European institutional solo exhibition of the late self-taught Brazilian artist Francisco da Silva (1922/3*–1985, Brazil), known as “Chico da Silva,” or simply “Chico.”

Chico’s paintings offer a glimpse into an immense non-hierarchical cosmology fuelled by the artist’s imagination, mythology and folklore. Depicting sea creatures swimming on the currents of outer space, and fantastical creatures vividly painted in hallucinatory battles or stretching their jaws agape to consume smaller creatures, Chico’s works call attention to the interconnectedness of everything.

During his life, Chico’s practice was subject to significant local and international fascination, though in international contexts it was often exoticised as “primitive art.” Questions of authorship and authenticity following Chico’s establishment of a collective studio practice, the Pirambu School, also divided opinions. The exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary presents a selection of seminal paintings created throughout the artist’s lifetime and celebrates Chico’s contribution and legacy to contemporary Indigenous art practice in Brazil.

Chico was born surrounded by the Amazon rainforest in Alto Tejo, and while he moved across the region, he spent his life living in Brazil. Beginning his artistic journey by painting the whitewashed walls of fishermen’s houses in Praia Formosa, he gave shape and colour to his drawings with pieces of charcoal, bricks, leaves, and other elements found around him.

In his gouaches and paintings, Chico represented mainly forest creatures, such as birds and fish of the Amazon, as well as fantastical figures, including dragons. His artworks give form to stories and mythologies from the oral tradition embedded in the culture of Northern Brazil. His compositions are marked by rich polychromy and the graphic details of his drawings, composed of colorful wefts and lines.

Given the originality of his style and compositions, Chico stood out in the context of the so-called Brazilian popular art movement and, in addition to achieving great commercial success during his lifetime, attracted considerable interest from critics. Among the major exhibitions in which he participated are Francisco da Silva, Galerie Pour L’Art, Lausanne, Switzerland (1950); Exhibition of Primitive and Modern Art, Musée d‘Ethnographie, Neuchâtel, Switzerland (1956); 8 Brazilian Naïve Painters, Galerie Jacques Massol, Paris, France (1965); 9ª São Paulo Art Biennial, Brazil (1967); and Tradition and Rupture: Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (1984). In 1966, he received an Honorable Mention for his participation in the 33rd Venice Biennale.

* The artist’s date of birth is not precisely known and is widely circulated as 1910. Given the precarious nature of record-keeping in early twentieth-century Brazil, together with the adverse conditions of his life, it is not possible to determine the exact date with certainty. In recent years, however, based on cross-referenced data and interviews given by the artist, researchers have established that the widely circulated 1910 date does not align with their findings.

Chico da Silva: And the soul is for the birds is curated by Salma Tuqan and Niall Ó Faircheallaigh and is showing alongside Augustas Serapinas: Physical Culture.