BEATRIZ MILHAZES

Characterizing herself as a "conceptual carnevalista," Beatriz Milhazes (born 1960) merges the bright chromatic exhilarations of her native Brazil with a conscious reappraisal of the history of abstract painting. "I am an abstract painter speaking in an international language," she declares, "but I am interested in things and forms of behavior that are found only in Brazil." Applying paint to canvas not with a brush but via the application of plastic sheets, Milhazes has developed a vivacious style that allows her to invest even the most traditional of painterly themes with a freshness and energy. This volume reproduces her epic treatment of the four seasons, inspired by the weather cycles of Rio, where winter registers as a change in mood rather than in temperature: "it's still hot, but nobody goes to the beach, simply because it is winter." Also reproduced here are an extraordinary baroque mobile made for the artist's show at Berlin's Galerie Max Hetzler and new collages.