MARILIA KRANZ

In the early stage of her production, until the mid-1960s, Marilia focused on drawing and the study of painting. Afterwards, she began to produce abstract reliefs in plaster, cardboard, and wood – works that were part of her first solo exhibition, in 1968, at Oca Gallery, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1969, after returning from trips to Europe and the United States, she started to produce reliefs using the vacuum forming technique with rigid polyurethane, fiberglass, resin, and industrial enamels; as well as sculptures with cut and polished acrylic, called Contraforms.

The artist innovated by producing frame-objects using the vacuum forming technique, which was not widespread in Brazil at the time, even in the industrial sector. In addition, the content of the works also had a strong experimental character. According to art critic Frederico Morais, the abstract and geometric forms explored in these works and in Marilia’s entire body of work would be closer to artists such as Ben Nicholson, Auguste Herbin, and Alberto Magnelli than to the constructivist trends that were prominent in Brazil, such as Concretism and Neo-concretism.

From 1974 on, she resumed her painting practice, addressing in her canvases elements of her favorite landscapes in Rio de Janeiro. Compared to artists such as Giorgio de Chirico and Tarsila do Amaral, her geometrized landscapes and figures, bordering on abstraction, contain solemnity and eroticism at the same time. Pastel tones, in turn, became her signature. “The color surrenders before the luminous intensity,” says Frederico Morais. When we look at the flowers and fruits that are featured in several of her paintings with great sensuality, we also think of Georgia O’Keeffe, considered by Kranz as her “soul sister”.

The artist is also known for her support of women’s sexual liberation and political freedom during the military dictatorship in Brazil, as well as her fight for environmental causes, being one of the founders of the Partido Verde in 1986.

Marilia Kranz has held exhibitions in galleries and national and international institutions and has received numerous awards for her paintings and sculptures, including: the sculpture award at the 13º Panorama de Arte Atual Brasileira, in 1981, and the acquisition prize at the Salão de Artes Visuais do Estado do Rio, in 1973. In 2007, there was the retrospective exhibition Marilia Kranz: reliefs and sculptures at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, the occasion when the monograph Marilia Kranz was launched, written by the art critic Frederico Morais, who followed the artist during her entire career.

Text courtesy Galatea.