Sketch Book of Jose Roberto Leonel Barreto

Photographer

Drewal, Henry John

Date

• 1987

Summary

• Page from the sketch book of Brazilian artist Jose Roberto Leonel Barreto. Referring to himself as a "third generation Abstract Expressionist," Barreto once stated that the essence of his work "is in the spaces, the juxtaposition of forms on the canvases, my untraditional geometry, which has to do with absurdity, with African, Amerindian, and Occidental symbols. It's all mixed-up, like Brazil!" While painting, Barreto continually alters the position of paintings. He discovers a painting's orientation at the end of the process when he signs the work, a technique he derives from physical aspects of Zen meditation that he practices. There is thus an innately corporeal and sensory dimension to his canvases.