Antonio Dias ^©  

(1944 - 2018)

Photograph of the artwork authenticated by the artist

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Antonio Dias (Campina Grande, 1944 - Rio de Janeiro, 2018) spent his artistic career between Rio de Janeiro and Milan. His works are exposed in important international collections and constitute a significant part in the history of Brazilian art.

The work presented here is highly representative and belongs to a series of works made during Dias' trip to the Asian country in 1977, where he had gone with the intention of learning how to make paper by hand. Here Dias produced the material himself with the help of local artisans. The works belonging to this series subvert the authorial unit, in fact, as the artist says in an interview released during the presentation of his works: "What interests me most is the connection between the production of the work and its producers". The artist’s journey to Nepal became a turning point, what had started as a short research project became a permanent interest. Since the eighties in fact the artist has increasingly focused his attention on painting, experimenting with different natural elements and pigments such as gold, iron oxide and graphite, combined with different agents, practice that made it famous and appreciated in Brazil as in the whole world.