Maria Auxiliadora Silva
1935, Campo Belo, MG, Brazil | 1974, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
Maria Auxiliadora moved with her parents and siblings to the city of São Paulo, and stopped studying when she was 12 years old to help the family, working as a domestic servant and embroiderer. Her mother, Maria Almeida Silva (1912), also produced very interesting wooden sculptures in African style when interviewed her in 1972, and played a clearly matriarchal role in the family. Eight of her children, at the time, carved, painted or wrote poetry. The father, José Cândido da Silva, retired civil servant, had a gift for music and played the 8-bass accordion. When she was fourteen, Maria Auxiliadora began drawing with charcoal. She soon moved on to gouache and only when she was 26 years old did, she try oils. Maria Auxiliadora herself, in deposition to Mitopoética de nove artistas brasileiros (1975), where I wrote the first essay about her work, defined her technical career: “My first oils in 1968 were flat, with no relief. But at the end of that year I had already begun doing relief with hair. First using the oil to fix it because at that time I didn’t even know about Wanda’s mass. I’d get very think paint and imprint the hair, very often my own, because very often I’d paint Creoles. I had this idea when I was painting a large picture of candomblé in1968”. Maria Auxiliadora also at that time spoke about the construction of the hybrid work between painting and high relief that characterized her visual expression, in which many saw a leaning towards pop art. In late 1960s and in the 1970s, she very often used to write dialogues leaving the mouths of the characters, like in comic strips. When she began using plastic mass, the undulation of the canvas was even more accentuated. The pronounced relief of the female genital organs, besides obviously underscoring the portrayal of sexuality, reminds us of rare but existing iconographies of orishas, Yemanjá, for example, who suggest fertility. This association is made by the social context shown by Maria Auxiliadora’s urban painting. The religious themes are represented in her work with as much intensity and frequency as the amorous themes, which described her being in the world through a great erotic vibration. Auxiliadora was born in Minas Gerais, moved to São Paulo when she was three, and has kept the nostalgic memory of life in the countryside, certainly kept alive by her mother’s accounts, and which he also portrayed frequently. However, the themes of candomblé, a caboclo’s house, fantastic scenes of dances, festivals, carnivals, loves and possession of orishas will be what comes most spontaneously to the eroded, volcanic surface of her painting. Maria Auxiliadora’s art also has an extremely interesting autobiographical soundtrack: she paints herself among relatives, at parties, as a painter before the easel surrounded by inspiring angels. Or in tears, from that hard time when she was told that she had an incurable disease, which caused her death before she was 40.
Individual Exhibitions:
2021 Maria Auxiliadora: on the terrace of the world, Galeria Estação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2018 Maria Auxiliadora: dialy life, painting and resistance, Museu de Arte de São Paulo MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1979 Maria Auxlliadora, Museu do Sol, Penápolis, SP, Brazil
Collective Exhibitions:
2022 Carolina Maria de Jesus: brazil for brazilians, Instituto Moreira Salles IMS, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2021 They Were Already Here, Galeria Base, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2020 Women in Folk Art, Galeria Estação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2018- 2019 Lina Bo Bardi Tupí or not Tupí, Brasil 1946-1992, Fundação Juan March, Madrid, Spain
2018 Afro-Atlantic Histories, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2017-2018 Histories of Sexuality, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2016 Histories of Childhood, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2015 Picture Gallery in Transformation, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2009 Brazil Brazilian, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2005 It is our pleasure, Galeria Brasiliana, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2002 Pop Brazil: Brazilian outsider Art, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2002 6º Biennial of Folk art of Brazil, no SESC Piracicaba, Piracicaba, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2001 Folk Art, Galeria Jacques Ardies, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2000 Brazil 500 Rediscovrey Show and more, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1999 The mystic in brazilian art, no SEX Itaquera, SP, Brazil
1994 Great exhibition of Brazilian Folk Art, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1980 Images of Dance, Paço da Artes, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1980 People of the Earth, Paço da Artes, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1975 Color Party, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1973 6º Contemporary Art Salon of Santo André, Paço Municipal, Santo André, SP, Brazil
1972 5º Contemporary Art Salon of de Santo André, Paço Municipal, Santo André, SP, Brazil
1971 17 Naïve Painters of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1971 4º Contemporary Art Salon of Santo André, Paço Municipal, Santo André, SP, Brazil
1970 6º Contemporary Art Salon of Campinas, Museu de Arte Contemporânea José Pancetti, Campinas, SP, Brazil
1970 3º Contemporary Art Salon of Santo André, Paço Municipal, Santo André, SP, Brazil
1969 26º Salon Paranaense, Federação das Indústrias do Estado do Paraná, Curitiba, PR, Brazil
1969 2º Contemporary Art Salon of Santo André, Paço Municipal, Santo André, SP, Brazil
1968 2º Nacional Biennial of Arts, Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, BA, Brazil
1968 1º Contemporary Art Salon of Santo André, Paço Municipal, Santo André, SP, Brazil
Public Collection:
Museu de Arte de São Paulo MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
Selected Publications:
2020 Women in Folk Art, Galeria Estação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2018- 2019 Lina Bo Bardi Tupí or not Tupí, Brasil 1946-1992, Fundação Juan March, Madrid, Spain
2018 Maria Auxiliadora: dialy life, painting and resistance, Museu de Arte de São Paulo MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2018 Afro-Atlantic Histories, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2017-2018 HIstórias da sexualidade, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2016 Histórias da Infância, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2015 Concreto e cristal: o acervo do MASP nos cavaletes de Lina Bo Bardi / organized by Adriano Pedrosa, Luiza Proença. 1ª editor - Rio de Janeiro: Cobogó, São Paulo, MASP
2000 Mostra do Redescobrimento Brasil 500 é mais, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1988 A Mão Afro-Brasileira , Significado da contribuição Artística e Histórica, Emanoel Araújo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
1978 Mitopoética de 9 artistas brasileiros- vida, verdade e obra, autora Lélia Coelho Frota, Edição Funarte, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
1977 Maria Auxiliadora da Silva, autor Pietro Maria Bardi, editora Giulio Bolaffi
