Carnade

Brazilian artist (Alex) Carnade has a powerful and evocative style, a result of extensive personal studies of various artistic movements including expressionism, as well as modern and classical styles.

His work elaborates on realistic foundations, migrating to vigorous brushstrokes and an intense use of fingers and spatulas, seeking to create a juxtaposition between delicacy and aggressiveness. Carnade allows himself to be carried away by his instinctive and visceral side, building his works in an explosion of feelings on paper, canvas and panels. It is here that his instruments (ranging from oil to paper waste) merge in the construction of humanoid-looking forms, each displaying some form of facial disfigurement - the mark of the artist's work. 

Coming from an environmental sciences background, Carnade is a specialist in climate change and nature conservation. His passion for this can be seen in some of his works. It is for this reason he often choses to work on recycled paper and materials.

In 2019, he had two of his works exhibited at the “Contemporary Exhibition of Visual Arts” in partnership with the Curitiba Biennial, the largest contemporary art event in southern Brazil. 

I try not to think too hard about the choice of subject matter. Something captures my attention, and I trust the “First thought, best thought” quality of the process. I don’t need to be in a special state of mind in order to paint, my experience is that when I paint, I am ushered into a special state of mind. I can speak of this as, “being in the zone” or, care-free absorption, or grace. In this state my anxieties and a sense of apartness soften. I may enter into a state of communion with what I perceive. There appears a seamless continuum between feeling and felt object. I enjoy this state of being. I could almost say that I live for it, live to be in it, and to serve it. For me this state is all that is required in order to perform work as an art maker. My due diligence needs only to concern itself with whether I am able to access this state of being, or not. Within it all considerations: technical, aesthetic, thematic, material and otherwise assume a place and proportion. The whole is in relationship to the parts, and visa versa. A world is created and laid out against all other possibilities, all other choices. Before, during and after the work, thoughts, associations, juxtapositions, and ideas emerge. In a carefree state, these do not become over bearing, rather assume the habit of cloth lightly worn. Nothing is nailed down. Directions and flow move easily.