The World Inside

“...In 1990, Duprat organized the elements of his art into a geometric scheme which can be interpreted as a constructive summary of his creator’s goal. The following elements coexist in this game, which may be read both in its horizontal and vertical continuity: interior, figure, still life; space, light, time; myth, reality and mistery[...] The crystal clear structure of spaces - sometimes the only and independent subject of the painting is space itself - leads us to believe that classical constructivism has also been a major influence in Duprat’s art. His leitmotiv is lyrical meditation, silence[...]but the tranquility of meditation/reflection is jarred by an external and overwhelming emotion. The art of Marcos Duprat questions the past, the present and the future, on the thrilling edge between reality and mistery.”

Budapeste, 29 de Junho de 1992
GÉZA CSORBA

“[...] Recently, passing through Milan, I have had the opportunity of seeing the new paintings of the Brazilian artist Marcos Duprat. As I already knew, his work has remained figurative, a sort of painting which has recently attracted again the public’s attention and the critic’s discussions in relation to abstractionism. In 1979, the Museum of Art of São Paulo dedicated an exhibition to Duprat. The artist was introduced then by critics Vera Pedrosa and Carlos Rodriguez Saadevra. Vera has pointed out the roots of Duprat’s artistic background, in the seventies, in the United States, when the prevailing orientation was that of hyper- realism, as an immediate successor to the experience of pop art. At that moment there was an emphasis on photography and an interest in presenting the figure in a new way. Duprat’s originality was to work with the figure and its reflection on water and mirrors.
In the following years, the artist has pursued his call, giving evidence of a deeper and more intense concentration, as it is clearly indicated in his thoughtful and laboured drawings, previous studies for pictorial works. In these drawings, Duprat’s style shows his sensitive perception of the reality of forms.
What he has recently shown me in Milan confirms his intentions: to put on canvas his thoughts, permeated by his own poetic sense, in compositions in which nature has a substantial value. In some of those works, the artist paints landscapes and still lives several squares, as in a ‘puzzle’, achieving an attractive and resourceful composition.
Having arrived at this point, I could only prolong myself in qualifying Duprat’s paintings, and I would rather leave it to the visitors of the current show I have received in the Museum of Art of São Paulo.”

Pietro Maria Bardi, MASP, 1988

"Marcos Duprat is a Brazilian artist whose work is relatively unknown in his own country. The exhibition LIMITES/BOUNDARIES assembles a selection of sixty works of his private collection spanning four decades of creative activity intertwined with his diplomatic career. These paintings – oils on canvas and on paper, pastels, watercolors and pencil drawings – trace his evolution from figurative to abstract art.

As a whole, Marcos Duprat’s work has its roots in his singular and fruitful life experience as both an artist and a diplomat, with an attentive look to the most significant developments in the domestic and international art world with which he has had a direct and enriching contact. After pursuing his Masters in Fine Arts in Washington, D.C., seven years in Europe and nine in Asia have left a clear imprint in his work.

Following the examples of Bill Viola and Hiroshi Sugimoto, contemporary artists that act as curators of their own presentations, Duprat is the curator of this exhibition.

The National Library is pleased to host and share with the public in Rio his artistic path."

Helena Severo
President of the National Library

“... a figurative painting, at first glance; however one should mistrust these images, of an apparently easy reading. Marcos Duprat aims at a recreation of reality, plays with the concept of the double, with all its psychological implications. The visible foresees the invisible. The new developments in his work are more towards a new metaphysical painting, inhabited both by pictorial events and by awareness of theis potentialities.”

Alberico Sala
Corriere della Sera, fevereiro de 1990

“The transforming light dominates these images with the unusual purpose of breaking the composition... There is an optical duel between the concrete elements of these images and the ethereal quality of light...”

Radha Abramo, São Paulo, 1999

“... Quietly indifferent to the frenzy of the latest avant-gardes, Duprat has taken refuge in a strict faithfulness to what he himself calls ‘the enigma of visible reality’. It is a riddle that his oil paintings set, decipher and re- set by means of a luminous, crystal-clear style, with chromatic changes suggesting moments of magic transformations. Planes are arranged, pigment layers overlap, colour emerges from “velatura” – a technique demanding a rhythm of execution miles away from the frentic legacy of Pollock and his followers. It is a slow painting, adagio-like, flavouring meditations on the double, the well pondered series, the research into depth – for such are the themes of his pictures, adept at focusing one image’s echo into another, reflections on mirrors and water, corridors unfolding into tunnels, delicate modulations of sequences.
This is pure poetry of the image: a very personal painting, where an extreme, wise austerity half conceals a constant dialogue with a great figurative tradition. Marcos Duprat restores painting to the alluring domain of articulate representation, forever a source of dreams and reverie. The visible world becomes mysterious by dint of clarity and transparence. There images, so calm and translucent, seem to question both themselves and the onlooker. And what is a question, asks a master, but the desire of thought?...”

José Guilherme Merquior, MASP, 1988

“... In spite of their isolation, these figures also reveal hope in their distended attitude, always facing light, without anxiety, calm and serene, full of peace and contentment. The floor, with its perfect straight and converging lines suggests there is depth beyond, in the open spaces. His palette is composed mainly of pastel colors and he works with oils achieving transparencies of an exceptional sensoriality and stunning richness[...] Marcos Duprat’s work is full of light. His nudes walk towards a new dawn in History. Quoting George Kubler in his book “The shape of time” : “every important artist reveals an obsession”. And adds: “The most extraordinary innovator is virtually a loner”.
Marcos Duprat is both, thus confirming his condition of first class creator in this last quarter of the XXth century.”

Prof. Maria Luisa Torrens, Diretora do Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Montevidéu, 1999

“... Living in Tokyo for two and a half years, the artist has been stimulated by the gentle light and the change of seasons in Japan. He frequently goes out sketching nature around the area of Shiroganedai where he lives. Duprat has a natural preference for glowing colors and fills the canvas with light almost to the point of its saturation, which may, at a first glance, lead to impressionism. However, when one observes carefully, in spite of the intense play of light and shadow, the material existence of the painting is ethereal, with an almost atmospheric quality, and the harmonious color scheme is evenly orchestrated...
The world created by this artist is all an illusion of a subtle reality extended beyond a transparent film. Or is it more appropriate to call it a day dream?
The surface of the water or the shapes of fish in water drawn by the artist are as if light has penetrated the lens, as if light itself has been permanently set on the canvas[...]
The works exhibited now reveal contrasting concepts such as nature and artificiality, straight lines and curves, light and shadow, East and West, the unseen presence of someone and a sense of solitude, which comprise the charm of his work...”

Takeshi Kanazawa, Tóquio, 2003

“... His leitmotiv is lyrical meditation, silence... these images question the past and the future, on the thrilling edge between reality and mistery.”

GÉZAC SORBA, Diretor do Museu Nacional da Hungria, Budapeste, 1992

“... As a result of his diplomatic career, Marcos Duprat is a globetrotter. His artist`s eye selects, from cultures and landscapes that he has visited, sensitive elements which are incorporated into his work, consolidating a permanent process of pictorical investigation, in which light plays a structural function. His recen lengthy stay in Tokyo has been translated into the work seen in this exhibition: a subtle articulation of oriental transparencies, which unfold on sheets of paper, in permanent movement that seem to invoke the passage of non-chronological time, determined by poetry and pain...”

Marcelo Mattos Araujo, São Paulo, 2006

“Light is one of the fundamental sources of painting. The Madonnas of Raphael, Da Vinci’s smile of the Gioconda, the portraits of Rembrandt, all these artists have endeavored to capture the mystery of light and shadow. This subject matter still prevails through the passage of time, even now, when one witnesses dramatic changes in the artistic forms of expression.
Marcos Duprat, born in Rio de Janeiro, has developed his significant career as an artist, making the core of his expression the aesthetics of images woven by nature’s gift: light. His main themes are figures, interiors, and still-lives, which are subtly connected with each other. Water and mirrors – which appear frequently in his paintings – obviously symbolize an attraction to introspection, fantasy, and aesthetic narcissism. The quiet interiors of Vermeer, Bonnard’s exuberance in his depiction of light, and the somewhat haunting atmosphere characteristic of Hopper – by absorbing influences from these artists whom he admires, Duprat explores endlessly his own transparent corridors of light...”

Miki Kaneko Gekkan Bijutsu Art Monthly, Tóquio, novembro de 2004