Bia Candido

 Bia Cândido is a visual artist and graphic designer. Brazilian, she has lived in Australia since 2010. Her painting is based on direct observation and the selection of concrete themes: the body, the landscape, and folk architecture. She works with acrylic on canvas, exploring intense colors and frontal compositions. Her work moves between the florid and the abstract. Bia organizes the pictorial space in blocks of color, structuring the scene with balance and tension. Her use of red, the contrasts between sky and ground, and the central figures that occupy the frame with presence, mark a direct style that doesn't depend on metaphors. There is consistency in her production, both in the portraits and in the landscapes: what varies is the theme, not the language. Brazil remains a constant reference in her work, not as an exotic theme, but as an affective and visual repertoire. It's present in the lines of the stacked houses, the dirt streets, the proud portraits, the elements of everyday life that she transforms into painting with precision. When depicting urban scenes, natural environments, or bodily gestures, Bia doesn't seek to soften or romanticize. Her painting is clear, direct, and decisive. The gaze she proposes doesn't idealize or distance itself. She paints from what she knows and recognizes. Her work has formal precision and a defined place: it stems from the experience of being Brazilian far from Brazil, without losing sight of what constitutes her.