Carlos Contente
The core of Carlos Contente´s art work is his own self portrait, a kind of homonymous but independent character of the artist. The year was 2002, the artist´s decision was to repeat his self portrait ad infinitum. Soon, Contente turned to a kind of character that is aware of his condition of a being made to be repeated forever; he is the protagonist of many narratives over blank walls. Closely related to the comic book culture, the artist creates different stories for his character, such as a hand drawn book in which “Contente” interviews the green color, discussing social, pictorial and existential issues. It is through this small, oval shaped portrait and its endless repetition that Contente creates a character that seeks to understand the life and history of the surfaces hosting his existence. The repetition of "Contentes" creates the artist´s own territory in bidimensional spaces. Each exhibition is like a story to be read; it has a main topic, and the artist tries to find how the narrative movement works in static spaces as a picture on the wall , surrounded by frames, contrasting with the flow of images and thoughts spreading over a blank wall.
Biography
Carlos Contente ( Rio de Janeiro, 1977 ), was the recipient of the Entel Award at SIART (Bienal Internacional de Arte de La Paz, Bolívia) in 2005, and had his first solo show at A Gentil Carioca Gallery in 2006, following two important collective shows and one solo show at Paco Imperial in Rio de Janeiro. In 2007 he took part in the Bangkok International Art Festival in Thailand, working on urban interventions.
Recent exhibitions
| 2013 | Contented, I keep going, humble and faithfull; lines and bruises tell my stories, Galeria Emma Thomas, São Paulo |
| 2012 | O Mundo/The World, Galerie Bendana I Pinel, Paris |
| 2011 | Infinite jungle of individual repetition, Galeria Christinger de Mayo, Zürich, Switserland |
| 2009 | Compradores de Mundo/World Buyers, Galeria A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro |
Origin
Brazil