Nilda Neves' 'Visagens e assombros do sertão' at Central Galeria in São Paulo

Nilda Neves presents 'Visagens e assombros do sertão,' a solo exhibition at Central Galeria in São Paulo, featuring nearly twenty paintings created from 2010 to the present, on view until May 6. The show is co-curated by Rivane Neuenschwander and Lisette Lagnado, who first encountered Neves's work in the 2022 group exhibition 'Alegria, um invenção' at the same gallery. Born in 1961 in Botuporã, Bahia, Neves worked on her family farm before moving to Brumado, where she graduated in accounting in 1982. She relocated to São Paulo in 1999, opening a northeastern food lunch counter in 2000. Her artistic practice began in 2010 with self-taught paintings on notebook paper to create covers for her self-published books 'Belo sertão' and 'O lavrador do sertão.' She later worked as a hairdresser and manicurist while selling her paintings. Her works are now in the collections of MAR (Rio de Janeiro), MAC-USP (São Paulo), and MACS (Sorocaba), and she received a Special Mention at the 15th Bienal Naïfs do Brasil — Sesc Piracicaba in 2020. The curators highlight her unique vocabulary and the resistance emanating from the sertão in her paintings. Neves currently lives and works in Camanducaia, Minas Gerais, where she paints on wood supports, including demolition wood and riverbank logs.