NEW YORK, NY.- Edelman Arts announced its exclusive representation of the noted Brazilian painter Paulo Laport, whose presence in major private and public collections in Latin American and Europe has built an international reputation, and who is now poised to exhibit in the United States.

Renowned for his exquisite touch as a virtuoso of painting who combines luminous chromaticism and a meticulous dialogue of edges and surfaces, Laport's elegant work has garnered critical and curatorial acclaim since his first gallery exhibition in Rio in 1981, quickly entering museum collections (including the Museum of Modern Art in Rio and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lausanne) and receiving high honors at the salons and biennials particularly in Latin America. The latest works, those that will be on view at Edelman Arts (accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by cultural historian Charles A. Riley II, PhD), raise the medium of painting itself to technical heights of a new order, offering palimpsests of mesh-like grids both brushed and pushed by a paddle tool, disclosing layer upon layer of emerging color and rhythm.

In an extensive essay on Laport's recent work, art historian Guilherme Bueno, who is Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art and professor of Brazilian Art History at the School of Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro, comments, "This slow painting, in which respect is contradictory to the fast-moving modern world, requests of us a perception that I would not call introspective (which would make it sound romantic), but rather immersive (i.e., it requires accurate attention under prolonged exposition)."

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Paulo Laport was educated in New York at both the Art Students League and Pratt Institute. His paintings have been awarded top honors in such prestigious salons as the first Rio de Janeiro Salão de Verão in Rio de Janeiro, the Concurso Nacional de Artes Plásticas in Brazil (Acquisition Award), the Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, the Bienal Nacional in São Paulo, the Arte Actual de Ibero-América in Madrid, the Bienal Internacional de Arte in Valparaíso, the Trienal Latino-americana del Grabado in Buenos Aires and the Bienal Italo-Latino-americana di Tecniche Grafiche in Rome, to name just a few. After decades of appearances in solo and group shows internationally, his solo debut in New York will open in May at Edelman Arts.