Beatriz Milhazes

One of the most prominent artists from Rio de Janeiro on both the national and international stages, Beatriz Milhazes (1960, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) has developed an artistic practice marked, since the 1980s, by the presence of ornamental motifs and diverse references drawn from art history, ranging from the exuberance of the Baroque to the popular, hedonistic grandeur of Carnival. Milhazes works primarily in painting, printmaking, and collage. Her visual vocabulary is dynamic and draws from a wide variety of sources, from industrial materials and product packaging to graphic patterns deeply embedded in the popular imagination. This places her in constant dialogue with Pop Art while simultaneously engaging with the geometric tradition of Brazilian art, represented by Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements.

Her work frequently rejects gesturality, preferring the transfer of images and forms onto the support through collage and mechanical processes. Circular shapes in concentric displacements and sinuous lines are common, creating a sense of lightness and dynamism in her geometric works. This aspect is complemented by her vibrant, carnival-like, and tropical colors.

A member of the so-called “Generation 80”, the artist began to gain international recognition in the 1990s. Her works are held in the collections of institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in New York, as well as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, among others. Her paintings have achieved record-breaking prices for works by Brazilian artists at Sotheby’s auctions in New York.