Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (b. 1908, Lisbon, Portugal; d. 1992, Paris, France) painted intricate compositions, masterful in their spatial manipulation, evoking great depth and a profound sense of illusionistic space. Moving to Paris in 1928, she became an important member of the post-war expressive abstract movement, and it was here that da Silva first encountered Cubism, Surrealism and Geometric abstraction. Recalling the Hispano-Arabic Azulejo tiles, the undulating cobbled pavements and tiered architecture of Lisbon, da Silva began to use rectangular patches of colour to construct spatial ambiguities on the two-dimensional canvas. Within these geometric landscapes, da Silva gave form and countenance to abstract impressions of her memories. Her painful experience of dislocation engendered by a self-imposed exile in Brazil, escaping wartime Europe, is reflected in the shifting perspectives of her semi-abstract compositions. These spontaneous and yet studied works also communicate the instability and insecurity da Silva felt after the loss of her father at a young age, and throughout her itinerant adult life. A preference for solitude borne from her childhood, da Silva was reluctant to leave her studio, for fear of disturbing the harmony of her work. Her early confrontation with human mortality, intensified by her experience of the existentialist currents that swept through post-war Europe, lends a mystical, contemplative essence to the psychological space within her paintings.
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Ocula presents comprehensive online access to a diverse number of artworks by a broad range of artists. On Ocula you can find artworks by well-known established artists as well as emerging artists.
Read MoreUsing the tools within Ocula you can learn more about the artist who created the work, share the artwork with others, and enquire as to its availability for purchase, and also its price. Defining contemporary art is both complex and controversial, but the decision to place an artwork within the category usually rests on one requirement: namely, that the artwork was created in the current century, regardless of its medium.
Beyond this simplistic definition, however, it can be difficult to pin down any universal principles that bind the pieces produced by 21st-century artists—though perhaps diversity itself might be understood as a general theme. Developing in parallel with the prevalent theory of postmodernism, contemporary art shares a commitment to pluralism and variety (rather than, that is, to stability and straightforward truth).
Some commentators speak of 'modern contemporary art', with this term's conflation of the modern art and the contemporary art models pointing to the murky boundary that separates the early 20th-century modernist movement from the sprawling latter movement that has ruled the art scene in recent decades.
The two are indeed connected—with the contemporary fine arts essentially an outgrowth of the modern movement—but what definitively separates them is the clear set of principles that all modernist artworks share, as opposed to the relatively absent criteria surrounding contemporary artworks.
For all its experimentalism, though, contemporary art is not entirely anti-traditional, as semblances of prior artistic conditions—be that modernism, impressionism, or realism—can be found hidden within many works. Long-established ideas like the anti-establishment role of art and the artist in society continue to prevail in the contemporary art scene, with visionary creatives across the globe often using their talents to make political statements through art.
The diversity of contemporary art is reflected in the many different artworks presented on the pages of Ocula. On these pages you will find artworks ranging from watercolour paintings, acrylic paintings, oil paintings, video artworks, sculptures, conceptual artworks to fine art photography and prints. Many of these artworks are for sale and you can make an enquiry directly to the Ocula member gallery representing the relevant artist.
In Ocula Magazine, an even wider range of artworks are referenced, including performance works. In considering the artworks on Ocula, we encourage you to not view them in isolation, but to consider how the work might fit into the artist's practice by reading the artist's profile, how the work relates to the artist's exhibition history and by exploring the articles written by Ocula Magazine and / or other publications on the artist.
