Simone Ribeiro

Self-taught, Simone Ribeiro conducts her studies towards Brazilian socio-cultural aspects, especially the ones from Minas Gerais State countryside, which are closer to her thoughts. Such celebrations in Minas Gerais, according to some historians, are related to its regional aspects, including the geographic one, which led ancient citizens to live surrounded by the mountains, in a natural insulation.
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During the gold-bearing era, the gold rush attracted to Minas (Gerais) soldiers of fortune from allover, bringing along their distinct cultural backgrounds. For this reason, mining activities had great influence in building the local socio-economical background; there happened a real cultural symbiosis.
As Minas towns slowly shared with the rest of the world, compared to coastal cities, Minas offered to its citizens and to newcomers stages for them to rehearse their dances, plays and practice their religiosity.

Now, this cultural interaction can be partly found in the “quadrilha” (square dance) – brought from European ball-rooms –, in the “congadas” – brought from Africa and elsewhere –, in the colonizers' religion, mixed with the Indians' and the black Africans' beliefs, and also in Minas' baroque style – based upon the Spanish baroque –, which had Aleijadinho as its greatest master. Minas people's typical behavior is also highlighted with a certain introspection and shyness, but without hiding the warm-heartedness while welcoming visitors.

All this experience, captured by the artist, belongs to her innermost, to her motherland's day by day. She draws her attention to Minas' citizens who don't lose their substance neither the joy for life, in spite of being surrounded by global conflicts, and seek pleasant moments for the days in their roots cultural events.

A work can only be said to be a beauty when the artist is able to transmit what he carries inside his soul…

This is the way Simone portraits in her paintings – real kaleidoscopes – people's simplicity and joy of living. With the help of a firm stroke and a colorful explosion, she aims at awakening the observer's feelings, leading him to investigate his emotions rising from the theme. Simone seeks the art appraiser's perplexity in this atmosphere full of social contradictions. And she unpretentiously states:

“My painting is for sure more than I am. I do not create or copy anything; all I do is to bring to my pictures what I consider to be the nature, the innocence and the candid joy of the people, who improve and change themselves without disregarding their roots”.

Pure forms to express human purity.
My perceptive abilities are materialized in works that bring life to the spirit of our times or, at least to the one of the places where I live. They are representational descriptions, resonance and resistance to the already created, conscious and unconscious.
The purpose of this undertaking and challenge is to create a work, or a series, that resounds both among the most sophisticated connoisseurs and the mere appreciator. I make use of a simple and understandable language, thus gathering popular acceptance and being able to broadly divulge the appreciation of the “BE” conception instead of the “HAVE” one. I do not create a new idiom, but new persuading rhetoric that represents strenuously achieved wins, filled with creative actions, losses and gains.
We have to acknowledge that, sometimes in the present, it seems that only those works that represent a radical change draw attention, although during a short time. Nothing can be as boring as a long-lasting novelty.
From the contemporary point of view, one may point some restrictions to the figurations I propose, for they touch a vulnerable spot: they act in the “comfort zone” that leads the spectator to accept as NEW only what is EXTRA-EXTRANEOUS. One must take a prejudiceless glance in order to recognize the posture and the truth contained in the work, for it deals with the content of the most intimate mental representations, and has been exerting fascination and influence on the great public who – despite of being aware or not of the artist's identity – arrogate his or her work and, many times, embody it with their own history.

The following paintings translate the artist's ripeness. Using lively colours and a firm stroke, the painter develops themes neglected by most. Simone is especially gifted!
The works, performed in acrylic mass, present a high-relief effect that draws attention to the atmosphere in which the artist is able to reproduce with magnitude inlanders' day by day: a simple quotidian – often naive – lived by those who transform work, music, chatting and religiosity into their reason for living.
The canvases do transmit motions, features and different situations. The painter's artwork represents, in its visual language, Brazil's luminosity.
The texts that describe them were created by the artist, after Research and experience.