Napoleao Cesar Neto

Themes rooted in his native land , the people, the fauna, the political satire, his pieces of newspaper; these are the elements that constitute a Napoleao painting. In his own words: "I criticize dehumanized capitalism, its consequences for the Third World and the use of nuclear weapons. I allegorize with everything that brings sorrow to humanity." In his work the characters denote a certain desolation in their faces and the artist's use of space projects an eery feeling. The racial mixture of his characters depict just who they are, a picture of the " Brazilian family" , where race does not reign as the main concern.Newspaper segments, a recurrent image in most of his work, sometimes appear to be meticulously planned, and at the other times casually arranged. His world is enigmatic. In a mixture of reality and fantasy, like a Gabriel Garcia Marqez novel, a serious message is communicated in a humorous way, but not without an element of pain. His faces are filled with a peculiar uncertainty, somewhere between infantile naivete and a sense of timelessness. The subject of his art itself within his work is not uncommon (e.g., people in art museums or galleries reacting diversely to the displayed works). According to Napoleao, art should be art for art's sake.In order to describe Napoleao's colors we have to mention earth colors,the deep greens of the Amazon forest, the tainted browns of the jungles' lizard, and the bright and refreshing orange tones characteristic of so many South American fruit. The presence of the flora and fauna of the Brazilian country are evidence of a constant concern with the ecological problem. Napoleao's work is sometimes reminiscent of the early century Italian painting in his use of space and perspective. One can sense an affinity between his work and that of Giorgo Chirico. A connection that exists more in the mind of the art critic, since Napoleao is basically a self-taught artist, which gives him a certain tone of Primitivism that only his non-academic approach can achieve. To visually "enter" one of Napoleao' s paintings is like entering the human mind and the network through which it organizes its thoughts; a simultaneous set of ideas that for the first-time spectator might seem disconnected, but upon which a second glance reveals that nothing could be better organized. It is like a dream in the way that it shows things not always evident in an ordinary conscious state. Napoleao's paintings demand time and this is precisely one of their most distinctive characteristics, for instead of losing their appeal they can be enjoyed for many years.

Ricardo Vega