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Beatriz Milhazes

BrazilianBrazilian
, b. 1960
Beatriz Milhazes is celebrated for her vibrant, intricately layered paintings and prints, in which bold patterns and sensuous motifs—ranging from botanical blooms and Carnival ornamentation to oceanic vistas and Baroque colonial architecture—evoke the visual culture of her native Rio de Janeiro. Working with a distinctive technique, Milhazes paints onto plastic sheets before transferring the dried imagery onto canvas. This process, akin to a form of collage, produces luminous surfaces and sharply defined contours.While deeply rooted in a Brazilian visual vernacular, Milhazes’s practice is marked by a dynamic cultural hybridity. Her work draws on a wide range of influences, from the chromatic exuberance of Henri Matisse and the formal rigor of Piet Mondrian to the optical rhythms of Op art and the legacy of Brazilian modernists such as Tarsila do Amaral.Milhazes has exhibited internationally, with presentations in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Los Angeles, London, Basel, Berlin, Paris, and Hong Kong, among other cities. She represented Brazil at the 2003 Venice Biennale. Her work has achieved seven-figure results at auction and is held in major public collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Fondation Beyeler, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.