Sculptures and paintings of Jo?o Werner, by Adalice Araujo
by Adalice Araújo (1931-2012). Art Critic, AICA’s member, (In Memoriam).
As Jo?o Werner simultaneously makes sculptures and paintings, he can be considered as one of the most representative names of young art in the North Region of Paraná.
Although he had already worked with matte paintings by building his own toys with wood and glued paper when he was a child, Werner discovered his vocation for plastic arts only in 1982 in his twenties.
As Werner is got used to various readings from Plato to Nietzsche since his adolescence, he initially feels attracted to philosophy. Indeed, after he submits to an entry exam at the University of Caxias do Sul, he enrolls for the Philosophy course. But, as Werner is convinced of the fact that there will be an irreversible unbalance between theory and life in the highly competitive consumption society, he gives up such Philosophy course when he realizes that he wasn't identified with it – a course that is excessively anachronistic for his mood. After the military service, following his mother advice, Werner enrolls on the wood carving course at Casa de Artes e Ofícios Paulo VI that Henrique Arag?o maintains in Ibipor?. Besides this master who is equally concerned about the mystical side of life, Werner finally finds out - by art - the answers to his deepest life desires. At the invitation of Henrique Arag?o who inclusively finances the project, he performs two large panels in one year and a half for his residence that is located at few kilometers of Ibipor? in a full green area; this transforms it inclusively in a landmark of Paraná art.
For the house fa?ade, Werner performs an apparent concrete panel; its triangular form reminds of the tympanum of Greek temples and the tympanum of portals from Gothic cathedrals. The adolescence mysticism, in addition to the multiple readings ranging from high philosophy to science fiction, appears in the visual world that Jo?o Werner creates, theatralizing the space. This panel named as "SHIKASTA" (on the left) is inspired by the text of the same name of Doris Lessing. According to the author, mankind emerges as an experience of beings from other galaxies and, under the Hebrew tradition, these beings are the angels. Following the continuous narration process, which is common to the medieval theater and the comics, he narrates the human trajectory in five sequences by giving it a special symbolism.
?Alegoria à vida do lugar sem nome" [“Allegory for life of untitled place”] (on the right) is the title of the wooden internal panel. Although it reminds us of the symbolist climate of wooden embossed works of Gauguin, such as "Soyes Mysterieuses" or "Soyes amoureuses vous serez heureuses", Jo?o Werner composes a collection of fables that is very personal. Using cedar as a raw material through seven pictures/symbols that govern the universe, he poetically resizes the myth. In spite of this, birds, trees, lianas and small details eliminate the great emptiness and the pictures have energy, dynamism and rhythm. At the same time that this panel is mystical and erotic, it joins monumentality and lyricism.
In sculptures in-the-round (on the left), Jo?o Werner shows a very personal way to sculpture. In these general cement pieces, he eliminates the illustrating sense of panels to concentrate on the picture. Practicing a popular humanism, he adopts a short canon in the small-sized works, which he names as “card”, that emphasizes the archaic character, the expressivity and the contained dynamism. There one feels a plurality of influences. Some influences maintain the rude and magic force of Romanic sculptures and of popular ex-votes. Other influences remember gargoyles of Gothic cathedrals or contain a remarkable matter summary.
His most recent large-sized monument is "Tributo ao homem do campo" [“Tribute for man's field”] (see sculpture). Placed at Getúlio Vargas de Cambé square, in front of the City Hall, it simultaneously pays homage to and memorizes the rural worker. As it is made of cement, Werner uses the incision technique (directly craving the cement blocks) and the plaster forms for certain details of the face. Therefore Jo?o Werner combines the popular style with the contemporary one.
Referring to the daily life of rural man, Werner uses three key elements: the vigorous and realistic figure of a farm worker down on his knees, uplifted hands [which can be an act for begging and thanking and a vertical element of great symbolic concentration – a kind of local menhir (an independent sculpture) with plant carving in the lower cement part, while pre-manufactured plant elements and metal pipes dominate the upper part], and a totally real hoe working as a kind of work icon. In addition to being an ecological monument that seeks to valorize man in nature, it has a social claim content.
In painting, it is evidently felt that Werner combines the utopia of the 70's with the freedom of the 80's (see paintings). From the post-modernism, he keeps the availability to review various styles of art history. He does not fear to widely make a thematic approach. Initially, as other artists of the North Region of Paraná have already made, Werner paints mainly farm workers to now concern about the daily relationship of the couple, their meetings and failures in meeting around building a true scenario. Sometimes, the woman figure seems to plunge into a Pompeia universe of great pictorial effect; sometimes, the couple is involved in a humor and irony climate, which is typical of German expressionism.
Despite of the fact that Jo?o Werner is a younger artist with a long way to follow, the work he has already made nominates him as an artist of remarkable personality who is predestined to be one of the great expressions of Brazilian art.