Glaucea Helena de Britto – författare

“Paula’s beautiful, ambitious project illuminates forgotten histories, honoring the overlooked.” –Andrea K. Scott, The New YorkerThe Brazilian artist Dalton Paula (born 1982) works across painting, installation, photography and sculpture. Drawing on rigorous visual research, he seeks to critically interpret historical events, particularly as they have affected Black people in Brazil—a country that, after Nigeria, contains the second-largest population of African descent.Dalton Paula: Brazilian Portraits showcases a sampling from the portrait series Paula embarked on in 2018, a tribute to the Black Brazilian men and women who fought for freedom and justice over the course of several centuries but have been systematically erased from the country’s dominant historical narrative. Through his portraits (one of which—a gripping rendering of the Brazilian slave rebellion leader Zeferina—appears on the cover of the much-acclaimed 2021 volume Afro-Atlantic Histories), Paula provides much-needed dignity, visibility and recognition to these valorous figures.

Castro’s intimate, small-scale works confront the disenfranchisement of racial and gender minoritiesThrough paintings, engravings, objects, photographs and drawings, Brazilian artist Lia D Castro (born 1978) uses sex work to investigate how race, class and gender dynamics play roles in situations of vulnerability and intimacy, and how affection and care can be tools for social transformation. The title of the book highlights a historical condition imposed on the so-called "racial and gender minorities": often seen as a majority at the very bases of our societies, while widely absent from decision-making positions. D Castro invites us to think critically on how racialized and gendered bodies could occupy positions of power in a system that profits from their exclusion. The book includes reproductions of works spanning the artist’s career, as well as commissioned essays by Ana Raylander Martís dos Anjos, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Tie Jojima.