Subversive, Inventive and Illuminating

Brussels is the epicentre of art in Europe, with its easy physical connections to important seats of artistic power like London, Amsterdam and Paris. Although smaller than these three other cities, its art scene attracts a cosmopolitan public that speaks in different accents emanating from every corner of the globe. The Brazilian artist Dalton Paula, therefore, could not have chosen a better city for his first major exhibition since his impressive debut at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Paula has exhibited in many prestigious art galleries in Brazil, North America, and Europe. In his works, he reveals himself as an artist who is intellectually sound and also well-steeped in history. ‘Undying Gardens’ at Martins & Montero Gallery is a collection that opens up a part of Brazilian history that many in Europe may not be conscious of – the African side of Brazilian history. Born in 1982 in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, Paula often uses his art to provide a mirror for Afro-Brazilian history, making a place for people who constitute the majority but who are rarely given their due place in Brazil’s artistic landscape. ‘Undying Gardens’ is a testament not only to Paula’s commitment to telling the story of his people, but to his intent to disabuse the world of certain perceptions of Africanness in Brazil and in the Americas. He traces this history beyond the transatlantic slave trade and the middle passage, to a period before Africans were transported to the Americas as enslaved people.

Paula describes ‘Undying Gardens’ is in part a documentary of Afro-Brazilian leaders, whose contributions to Brazilian history have been overlooked. ‘Still, little is known about these people I choose to portray, who they were, and often, there are no images of them,’ he says. In history, we see the destruction of the images of Black leaders and the evidence of their lives. There was, therefore, an active erasure, a silencing.

Paula points out that it is his goal to use the portraits as enduring images that will allow future generations to engage with what these figures stood for in their lifetime, even if they are constructed through fiction and fabrication. ‘I see myself as an archaeologist looking for traces and clues to build what would be the portrait of these people,’ he says.

The fictionalisation and fabrication Paula points to can be seen in Afufá Rufino IV, (graphite and watercolour on paper), a drawing that reprises the life of the Yoruba man Abuncare, who was enslaved and transported to Brazil after being captured during the internal struggle within the Yoruba kingdom that took place between 1823 and 1824, in the city of Ilorin in today’s Nigeria. Another painting entitled Curukango IV brings to life the story of the leader of the quilombo that bears Curukango’s name in northeastern Macaé, Rio de Janeiro. Curukango, who originally hailed from today’s Mozambique, is seen as a warrior among Afro-Brazilians. According to legends, he escaped enslavement by killing his enslaver before retreating into the forests to establish a community that grew to shelter around two hundred Black people.

While Paula adores the historical male figures that he draws, he speaks more passionately about the female figures. He links these emotional connections to his own mother, who sacrificed many things to support his art education, which took Paula to the Federal University of Goiás, where he studied Visual Arts.

One can sense confidence and defiance in the women in ‘Undying Gardens’. The lines in the drawings highlight the courage with which these matriarchal figures subvert male authority in a country that was founded on violence. Paula says that the figure of Tereza de Benguela IV is his favourite. Standing behind a flight of stairs with her right hand resting on a book, Tereza symbolises aspiration and the development of the mind through education, which Paula says is his own passion. Teresa is often referred to as Queen Teresa of Quariterê. She was one of the most prominent female leaders of the Brazilian quilombos (she arrived in Brazil as an enslaved person around 1730). Under her leadership, the Quilombo do Quariterê flourished, sustaining itself through subsistence agriculture and a determined resistance against slavery.

Paula’s art is engrossing, illuminating and educative. This is not art for art’s sake. A defining feature of the drawings is the way the artist illuminates certain parts of the figures, like their noses and lips, asking viewers to look beyond the obvious to the implicit meanings that emerge from an art that reprises lived experiences and subverts the narrative of slavery with stories of confidence, deviance and strength. This is a collection from an artist who is worth celebrating, just as these works will be celebrated in the decades ahead.