Dudi Maia Rosa

Pedra do Baú, in the mountains of Campos de Jordão in São Paulo state, is monumental. Here the artist recalls hiking to the top of the peak and understanding its color as he walked  the path up. “Your view of the mountain is transformed as you hike it,” he remembers. “It is not only the narrative of the rock itself, but the experience and the feelings associated with having climbed it. The chromatic scale is offered through this contemplation. It makes more sense because we are living it, looking at it.” 

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This dreamy landscape was registered on a rainy day. “There was a very strong rain that filtered the view -- like a prism. Sometimes you even get water from the rain in the watercolor. I love seeing the landscape through water. There’s water in the sea, in the watercolor, in the rain. Everything seen through this luminosity,” says Maia Rosa. It was painted on Ilhabela,  and we feel that the sky, the mountains, the rain and the ocean are all in tune. The artist becomes a part of the environment through his brush. 

In this painting, we see the beach of Cambury, where the artist has visited many times. São Paulo urbanites need a “parenthesis”, he recalls, a break from the city. “After a stay of 15 days, I start sweeping this very familiar landscape. The fresh water river in the first plane, the blue ocean in the background. On the top right you see a vulture, a presence that has been celebrated by other Brazilian artists such as Alfredo Volpi and Nuno Ramos. The urubu is a rich character in our culture. It creates a spaciality and you can feel the air around things. Could even represent our dream of being able to fly and enjoy this site in a more spatial way,” states the artist.

Here we see another beach on the coast of São Paulo state. The painting is bordered by vegetation as the sun sets and dusk falls. “We are framed by this rich, sultry, luminous Brazilian flora. You see that the twilight is in the sea, the luminosity reflects in the water and hits back. This color belongs to the reflex, the luminosity, more than the materiality. It is water plus light plus vegetation. It all flows into this chromatic conjunction.” 

Like Cézanne and Mount St. Victoire, Dudi Maia Rosa has painted this view countless times through the years. The artist’s brother has an apartment in Rio de Janeiro that looks at the magnificent mountain called Morro Dois Irmãos. As with meditative contemplation, the paintings have slowly evolved. “My early watercolors had green trees and brown mountains. Over time, the concentration and the tenderness allowed me to draw -- through imagination and feeling -- the irradiation and the luminosity that things emit,” he recalls. 

The same view from the Leblon neighborhood. The Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha discussed the power of a view , “when seen from a window, that window and not from another, behind it there is an apartment, some people, the sound of children playing, the smell of beans cooking.” The window  frames what is outside and also what is inside that place, adding meaning to what is seen.


Morro Dois Irmãos once again. The artist describes this iteration as “the same situation, but it is getting dark, the street lights are on, there is a certain luminous artificiality that I really enjoy. The urbanity, the relationship of being in a place where you have asphalt, pavement, street lighting and the absolute nature behind it, against the light.” 

From a different perspective now, we see Morro Dois Irmãos from the sidewalk, the iconic “calçadão,” where pedestrians and beach goers stroll. Maia Rosa says, “It is seen as a Carioca chronicle, you are seeing and living the afternoon ending, against the light.”

In this mountain range, Santo Antonio do Pinhal, Dudi Maia Rosa also repeatedly painted the same view over and over every late afternoon during a long stay. “The green starts merging with the yellows, the red warms it up and filters the shadows, which also start to become colorful. This concentration of being within the landscape decants, filters, cultivates that scene. From it, colors come through tenderly and I see my watercolor as the result of cultivating that care and attention, making the colors emerge.”

This watercolor was painted in the Florianopolis lagoon. Ninety five per cent of his watercolors are done “in loco.” “I was looking at this wonder, sitting there, these rocks were very polished, and sensual. They were pinkish, very solid. The watercolor takes off the clothes of nature. Instead of covering it with matter, it peels off layers. You see its intimacy, something super exciting and tender. Getting very close to nature.”

Cambury appears once again, this time as a symbol of rebirth. At the time of this painting, Dudi Maia Rosa had gone through a traumatic heart surgery and was at the beach recovering. “I started seeing it as a continuity of life. Some sort of transcendency. All of a sudden the rock becomes transparent, crystalized, luminous. Like a moving away from a very physical condition. It is a new time, a new order. A luminosity that cuts through nature.” 

As Dudi Maia Rosa puts it: “We are very lucky in São Paulo to be surrounded but two chains of mountains — Serra do Mar and Serra da Mantiqueira. Its is an amazing privilege. When I ask my self which one I like best, I understand that they feed each other, one goes up to the sky, the other goes down to the ocean. Here we see Serra da Mantiqueira, it is so delicate, and such a special part of my childhood and my whole life — the fresh air, the textures, the richness, the specialty. I take it as a gift”

Dudi Maia Rosa became known for pioneering procedures that question the medium of painting through the use of different supports and materials. In this online show, we focus on his watercolors. As he puts it, “before they were watercolors, I was a boy who swam in this ocean, I’ve climbed this mountain, I rode a horse in this field”. His watercolors are, in a way, a love affair with each one of the landscapes painted. He has an intimate relationship with each spot depicted, so much so, that the work becomes a sensual dance of contemplation and give and take.

I organize and curate pop-up art exhibitions, typically showcasing up and coming artists based in New York.

Scape | Dudi Maia Rosa

Scape | Dudi Maia Rosa