KATES-FERRI PROJECTS is proud to present ENIVO’S first North American solo exhibition, “BRAZA” on view October 7 through November 5, 2022. Curated by Simon Watson, BRAZA is a cycle of vibrantly colored, oil paintings of a street party. The exhibition will display eight canvases and contextualizing wall drawings that have as their theme the makeshift street parties created by energetic young people who inhabit humble neighborhoods in Brazil – but reminding us of similar places throughout the Americas and the world.

BRAZA portrays black youth on the periphery of a very real Brazil, one that from childhood the artist knows so well. Far from the media’s romance with Brazil’s windswept sandy beaches, this is a world of crowded shanty towns, favelas— brooding alleys, narrow stairs, cheap orange clay building blocks— that nevertheless are also full of people with hope and optimism. It’s a world of simple customs like a bath in a water tank with friends in the backyard while they bleach their hair getting ready for the funk dance where happy women dance with freedom in a party that never ends.

The scenes are raw and libidinous, a sexy street party scene fueled by cheap liquor and reefer. But even while a party is rocking, this is an uneasy world, a world with a raw edge. “Acerto de Contas”— the painting that illustrates BRAZA's announcement— depicts an anonymous young man with an imposing attack dog who stands guard over a drug deal with police payoff taking place deep in the favela's labyrinth walkways.

Reflecting on the painting, Enivo says “it depicts a staircase in a favela where, in the foreground, a young man dressed as a dog watches over us while the movement continues. Clothes dry on the clothesline, a tangle of electrical wires composes the scene. At the vanishing point we give the title to the work. There is a scene of corruption, a settling of scores between the police and drug traffickers, the so-called militias. To enter this underworld you need to have courage. Favelas are not imaginary, favelas are very real.”

Says the exhibition’s curator Simon Watson, “Enivo’s art making is fueled by Brazil's brilliant diversity of peoples, taking inspiration equally from age-old traditions and contemporary funk and urban scenes that have engendered unique art forms and styles embodying faith in people’s communality and generosity — sharing ideas from person to person, family to family, community to community.”

ENIVO (São Paulo, Brazil - 1986)
Marcos Ramos, who goes by ENIVO, is a street muralist with an active studio painting practice. Born in 1986, he began his art career at age 12 making graffiti in the Grajaú neighborhood of São Paulo. Since that early start, he has painted murals throughout Brazil, as well as in the United States, Mexico, Germany, Holland, France, Austria, Spain, Chile

and Argentina. And he has participated in art festivals in Munich and Cologne, Germany as well as in Vienna and Miami and has collaborated with major brands such as NIKE, Adidas, Samsung, Bradesco, Natura and Ellus. For ten years he worked as an arts educator in schools and not-for-profit organizations focusing on sharing knowledge, training, and sensitizing hundreds of young people from humble neighborhoods. Recognizing that Brazil lacked cultural spaces to host urban art, he and a group of like-minded artists, founded Galeria A7MA, in São Paulo’s noted mural district Vila Madalena. In that space he has curated more than 70 artists exhibitions and installations. As a painter, Enivo's works have been presented in individual and collective gallery exhibitions as well as in institutions such as the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu de Arte Sacra de São Paulo and the National Museum, Brasília.

Simon Watson, curator (Ottawa, Canada - 1955)
Born in Canada and raised between England and the United States, Simon Watson is an independent curator and arts educator based in New York and São Paulo. A thirty-five-year veteran of the cultural scene on three continents, Watson has conceived and curated more than 300 art exhibitions for galleries and museums and has consulted art collecting programs for numerous institutional and private clients. Over the past three decades, Watson has worked with emerging and under- recognized artists, bringing them to the attention of new audiences. His area of curatorial expertise is identifying visual artists with exceptional potential, many of whom are now internationally recognized in the blue-chip category and are represented by some of the most famous and respected galleries in the world. — In the past two seasons Watson has curated two dozen exhibitions that have taken place in commercial galleries in New York, São Paulo and Zurich as well as in institutional settings including Museu de Arte Sacra de São Paulo and Museu Nacional da República, Brasília.

Artworks on View       Available Works on Artsy Available Works on ArtLand Exhibition on YouTube