This painting by Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes contains a complex layering of organic, decorative and geometric forms. In the background of the painting is a solid circle in bright red, the intensity of which is tempered by other solid circles and straight-edged geometric shapes in muted shades of blue, yellow, gray, and brown. Layered atop this largely subdued background is an explosion of shape, pattern and color. Circles of varying sizes are embellished with detailed patterns resembling the embroidery on Indian sarees. Overlapping these circles are brightly colored flowers and graphic black ornamental shapes resembling jeweled necklaces, earrings or chandeliers.
Milhazes' painting plays with numerous tensions and contradictions. It is suggestive of Baroque opulence, but the geometric shapes and graphic quality of the work give it a distinctly contemporary feel. The shapes and patterns symbolize feminine decor and adornment--jewelry, wallpaper, embroidered dresses, flowers, chandeliers--but the deep blues, grays, browns and blacks that dominate much of the painting are traditionally masculine. Most intriguing is the elevation of decorative motifs into the realm of fine art. By removing these forms and patterns from their traditional context of decor and fashion, the viewer is allowed to examine them as wholly abstract shapes and lines.
For me, Milhazes' painting succeeds both as a lush and sensual work of pure beauty and as a thoughtful juxtaposition of apparently contradictory symbols and ideas.
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