Jadir João Egidio

Brazilian, b. 1933

The major repercussion of G.T.O.’s sculpture in the 1960s encouraged other artists in Divinópolis to develop and show their work. Jadir João Egídio’s has complete formal autonomy and express his religiousness in a unique way. His portraits of men and women, close to his everyday life, assume the gravity of suffering and silence of many images of Roman sculpture, an affinity that it denotes without his ever having seen this chapter in the history of western art. Jadir spent his childhood in the countryside. In 1960 he moved to the city, where he worked as a cart driver until 1977. That year he felt a strong urge to cut small blocks of wood and create objects and figures. Since then he has worked as a sculptor, and produced more than 500 pieces in his home workshop. He concentrates especially on the sculpture of saints, figures from the regional culture and close friends. He very energetically carves the block of wood, emphasizing its lines of for in compact volumes, as in Romanesque sculpture, and this is evident in Vó Rita that we show here. He also creates sculptured reliefs, like the last suppers, which were transformed by his expressive style, and the formal carefulness of his hand. In 1986 he took part in the Salon of the Popular Artist 22, Sculptors from Divinópolis, in what is today the National Center of Folklore and Popular Culture un Rio de Janeiro. Demand for his work has been increasing in the main centers in São Paulo and Rio.

Sources:
Photo: http://www.galeriabrasiliana.com.br/jadir/jadir.php
Text: http://www.galeriaestacao.com.br/en/artist/14#prettyPhoto