Luiz Carlos Coelho Cruvinel

Luiz Carlos Coelho Cruvinel
Born in 1945 in Morrinhos, Goiás, Brazil.

In 1963 he entered the Central Institute of Arts at the University of Brasília. He studied drawing with Glênio Bianchetti, Alfredo Ceschiatti and Hugo Mund Jr.; printmaking with Marília Rodrigues and Esther Jofily; and visual composition with Amélia Toledo and Athos Bulcão. He took an introductory course in aesthetics with Yulo Brandão and studied art history with João Evangelista.

In 1966 he entered the School of Architecture at the University of Brasília. From 1975 onward, he devoted himself exclusively to painting.

Writing about his work, Ijalmar Nogueira observed: “Cruvinel’s painting cancels out the luminosity so characteristic of Brasília through colors of an uncomfortable neutrality, using them to state his subject: the depersonalized and passive human being, without identity or perspective, who ‘accepts’ breathing in a gray and oppressive atmosphere. In one way or another, this person is all of us, vulnerable to consumerism and status, silent before the denial of rights; and also the bureaucrat, the politician, the military officer and the technocrat, each with symbols made sacred in clothing that diminishes the human being while increasing the capacity to be manipulated. In the metropolis or the countryside, as Cruvinel demonstrates, this person is the same. So is this unsettling predicament.”

Selected group exhibitions:

1976 — VIII SNAP, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

1977 — IV Salão da Inconfidência, Gold Medal, Brasília, Brazil.

1978 — Galeria Oswaldo Goeldi, Brasília, Brazil.

1979 — I Salão Brasileiro de Arte da Fundação Brasil-Japão, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil.

1980 — III SNAP, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1981 — Tel Aviv, Israel.

1982 — Instituto de Cultura Hispânica, Brasília, Brazil, and Palacio de La Madraza, Spain.

Source: Dicionário de Pintores Brasileiros.