Marcus Zayit | Multidisciplinary Artist
Mystical. Imaginative. Dreamlike. Spiritual. Rational. Precise. Logical. Productive. These are concepts that suit the work and its author: Marcus Zayit. And six or more years of acquaintance and interaction have passed. From the outset, his work deeply impressed me when we collaborated on an exhibition at the Caixa Cultural in São Paulo. At the time, I interacted with his angels, saints, and warriors; I was moved by their creation and procedures, the rigor of the composition, the perfect lines, the appropriate and incredible colors.
But I must confess that what caught my attention the most was a multitude of figures, symbols, and elements embedded in religiosity and mysticism—not uncommon to find in the culture and beliefs of our people from the Northeast.
And I see that Marcus continues his constant search for the realm of the unknown, the imponderable, the spiritual, the immaterial. I also see that the rigor in composition, forms, and lines has been further perfected. Like every conscious and spiritual being, Marcus has reached, in this vortex of symbols, forms, and colors, a line between the real and the unusual. He found "portals," predicted "signs," and celebrated "sightings."
In his and our imagination, portals would provide access to other planes (outside of Earth or within ourselves), other dimensions, other levels of consciousness. The crossings of these portals reveal signs and offer glimpses of fictional "beings," playful compositions that serve as key pieces for understanding and experiencing his creativity. The artist allows us access to his dimensional world through geometric constructions and the rigorous use of forms, inks, and colors. A world of chimeras, just like in Greek mythology.
A world that awakens in us the search for the unknown, the mysterious, the secret, and much more beyond.
(*) Elvira Vernaschi Curator, historian and art critic.
Member of ABCA and AICA — Brazilian and International Associations of Art Critics. São Paulo, July 2018.
Portals and much more beyond
ABOUT ANGELS, SAINTS, AND WARRIORS — BETWEEN THE PROFANE AND THE SACRED
Marcus Zayit belongs to a world whose historical-social context results in a people with a consciousness and attitude of deep religiosity: he was born in the hinterlands of Bahia, in Northeast Brazil, a region with roots deeply entwined in Portuguese culture of the remote Middle Ages, and an ingrained messianism/Sebastianism. These elements can be found in the folk tradition of cordel literature—the woodcut-illustrated poetry booklets that mirror medieval romances, including their musical and linguistic sonorities. His African ancestry, which initially helped define his work, is another guiding factor. In this exhibition, however, we observe that he gradually abstracts himself from these bonds, constructing his own iconography. Self-taught, Marcus was forced to invent, on his own, the resources through which he began to express himself: drawing, forms, the application and distribution of paint, composition, and space, in search of an order uniquely his own.
There are many paths that unveil his work, from technical/formal procedures to aesthetic and symbolic ones; from unreal characters and myths to the harmonization and interplay of colors in space; from the gentle rhythm of flat brushstrokes to the accentuated contour of forms; from the striking coloring of the background to the meanders of figures that intertwine in unrealities. Based on the observation of a completed work, combined or not with quick research on themes of his interest and life experience, he records what is within reach of his eyes and imagination, always seeking to update his expressiveness and reach increasingly higher levels and deeper steps, following his goal of transposing a world rich in unrealisms onto the canvas.
Marcus Zayit builds a mythic and mystical pantheon of saints and angels, closer to the world of men, much like the Greek and African gods who often descended to earth to love, fight, coexist, and enjoy mundane things. To his pantheon, he also brings dragons and beasts, symbols of the power of gods and humans over everything and everyone, and over evil—perhaps in the expectation of salvation. In this space, Marcus builds his art—very particular, very personal—which can now be seen in this exhibition at the Caixa Cultural Center - SP.
His painting reveals a transcendent religiosity with images laden with a sense of the sacred and an iconography that approaches Byzantine art, painted in the foreground, without perspective. There is clarity and precision in execution, in defining the figures, structuring the composition, and meticulously choosing colors; magic scenes where human figures, angels, saints, warriors, dragons, and serpents integrate, giving rise to unexpected images. Always with formal rigor, these scenes incite inquiry, reflection, and a more accurate analysis of their representativeness.
Analyzing the language of forms, we immediately perceive the limiting contour of the figures: "I always use a special brush of the same number so as not to differ the strokes; to avoid trembling, I keep my hand steady and glide the brush over the canvas without interruption." Through a wide and firm line, the artist simultaneously delimits the space between the character and the background, between form and color, integrating them without any kind of tension. They are one and the same; they have no life if isolated—the characters conform to the color planes. These are vigorous, perfect contours, drawn freehand. To them, he adds small strokes as if to break their supposed hardness. Our eyes, however, do not fixate on a single form but rather wander through them, through the space, the colors, and the composition, inquiring about the fantastic figure: what could it mean? Curiosity is awakened; emotion is present. Marcus Zayit sculpts forms (angels, men, animals, saints, and warriors) as if they were fantastic beings born from his mind, dominating our gaze and making our imagination take flight.
His canvases, now moving beyond the tropical palette of his early production, seek a greater lightness of color. Color dominates the composition. Chromatism has a life of its own, almost seeming to swallow the figures that join it; the artist intends a different perception of color, transcending its own value. The extremely smooth brushstrokes assist in building an atmosphere of disconcerting parameters: while we can identify his animals, warriors, angels, and saints, we sense something beyond reality within them. An approximation to visual values creates a strong relationship between the sacred and the profane.
Reflecting on his composition, we immediately notice that his bodies possess sculptural volumes much closer to planimetry than to actual volume. In some works, hands and feet are oversized, suggesting—as in Portinari, whom he so admires—strength and attachment to the land. In others, his bodies are as if fleshless, incomplete, suggesting a more celestial condition; conversely, in his saints, this incompleteness gives them a more earthly characteristic. Elongated faces, wide noses, thick lips, and wide-open eyes are composed in a Pre-Renaissance or Art Deco manner. "I like things to be very well defined; the use of the line/contour is thick and dark to define and highlight the figures in the work—this has been part of my style since my first drawings made with gouache back in the interior of Bahia."
The reading of Marcus Zayit's art is also done through analogies, independent of traditional classifications of style, and supported by the spatial relationship between figure and ground, movement and colors, poetics and form of expression.
There are compositions that differ visually by prioritizing one variable over another, all associated with the symbolic-imaginary universe. His deities—Christian or African—and his warriors are identifiable and characterizable also through signs that complement his imagery universe: he knows how to work these values. Thus, we find, for example, stylized birds that recall the dove of peace or the representation of the Holy Spirit (in Catholicism); or triangles, which refer us both to the Catholic religion and to Freemasonry; or circles, with hints of the mandala, representing totality, wholeness, perfection, the infinite, eternity, and peace—which, in the end, is also his quest.
Dichotomy is present throughout his work. In the figures, especially those of saints, they seem to levitate, carried by small angels that reinforce their condition as perfect and eternal. Meanwhile, serpents and dragons, subjugated under the power of spears or swords, are placed at the bottom of the composition, indicating their circumstance as malevolent beings that must be dominated. However, his warriors always possess wings and crowns, symbols of transcendental power. They are warriors of light! The construction is completed with divinized knights who lead, instead of horses and chariots, strange, extraterrestrial, abstract vehicles.
At a certain point, the artist is not content with painting on canvas; he transports his images to the three-dimensional, building objects with a language anchored in national roots of religious signs—here, indeed, Afro-Brazilian ones. We identify in this production a stripped-down hieratism, a geometric construction composed of organic and inorganic forms. He plays with our notion of space: the real space—the cardboard tube; the imaginary space—where forms of intense colors are placed; and the final space, which is only perceived by himself and by us when we encircle and/or analyze it.
Unrealist and metaphorical, this imagery, rich in elements, speaks primarily of the artist's internal universe, of his creative process, of a painting measured by visual results, by the richness of evocations, by the author's freedom, and by his perception and reflection on the world—a world rich in colors and shapes, a world of contrasts between the simple and the complex, between reality and the imaginary, uniting literature and fantasy, resulting in a magical and innovative interaction. His work sharpens our gaze and makes us realize that everything is a perspective of a universalizing artist.
(*) Elvira Vernaschi Curator, historian, and art critic Member of ABCA and AICA – Brazilian and International Associations of Art Critics São Paulo, July 2012.
MARCUS ZAYIT — IMAGES AND SYMBOLS
With a career that began in the late 1990s, he reveals his path and style, through which his stature as a poet of the image can be discerned. Indeed, images and symbols are the indicators of how to see and read his work, expressed through the social, cultural, and religious values of his land, and how to experience the beauty of his painting.
Marcus Zayit is self-taught, yet he honed his technique by working with his references in a deeply personal way, using the brush with freedom, elaborating forms, and applying colors within an aesthetic free from constraints. In his work, the well-defined line and contour prevail, illuminating figures drawn from the popular imagination of Northeastern Brazilian traditions. His universe is characterized by a poetics in which characters and forms emerge through intense and soft colors.
To the constructive element evident in the design of the images, Marcus adds sensory elements, intense chromatism and graphic rhythm, mastery of spatiality, and a timeless expressive drama. The disproportions of the figures—faces, hands, arms, and feet; the use of symbols—birds, fish, circles, triangles; the vibrant colors; the volumetric dimensioning, and a spontaneous creativity are his strengths, in the name of a very particular expressiveness.
His preference lies with religious figures, Christian saints, and Candomblé deities, as well as popular characters or warriors who, by their very construction, seem to have emerged from medieval times, and where affinities with Art Deco are noticeable—the parallel and elongated lines of the hands and feet, and the contours and adornments of the images. However, his search also leads him to fantastic beings, a mixture of man and machine. Without concern for adhering to this or that formula, or any specific aesthetic scheme, Marcus seeks to translate his art through a pantheon rich in elements of a deeply personal yet universal poetics, rich in symbolism.
(*) Elvira Vernaschi Curator, historian, and art critic Member of ABCA and AICA – Brazilian and International Associations of Art Critics São Paulo, May 2012.
ABOUT THE PAINTING OF MARCUS ZAYIT
Marcus Zayit is a phenomenon. This young self-taught artist from Bahia seems to have been born ready. His current paintings (I'm not familiar with his earlier works or phases) are emblematic, heraldic, and I would even say hieratic, that is, like sacred icons of regionality, with the telluric force of the Sertão (Brazilian backlands). They are impressive images, with an extreme and personal stylization, whose perfect technical finish gives the impression of tapestries, with the figures on flat backgrounds, where everything happens at the level of the plane, which gives them a contemporaneity that even evokes one of the best aspects of current graffiti art.
However, Marcus is not a graffiti artist. His painting, in my view, has the aura and poetics of what used to be called "armorial," a movement of which he would be an example, if the great Ariano Suassuna would grant me permission to include the young and brilliant painter within it.
Magical, delirious figures, emerging from the depths of archaic, primordial memory, from a backlands of dreams and struggles, where bandits appear as mythical warriors of an endless and ageless legend, fighting against the dragons of evil, which we know to be the exploiters of the people... But, in this painting, there is no political connotation whatsoever.
This is the universe of a poet of painting, who knows his craft very well, whose underlying craftsmanship is in no way inferior to that of the great sculptors of religious images from the backlands of our Brazil.
The painter Marcus Zayit is here to stay. With a "métier" worthy of a pre-Renaissance artist, we can imagine him in his studio, as unadorned as a cloister, crafting with true devotion these images that reveal a genuine religiosity, the fruit of an extreme love for Art with which he was abundantly blessed by the grace of the good God of our people...
Greetings, new Master!
Guilherme de Faria
Visual artist and writer
São Paulo, October 16, 2010.
MARCUS ZAYIT - VIGOR AUTÊNTICO
Marcus Zayit apresenta, acima de tudo, um estilo autêntico. Por não ter freqüentado cursos de arte, sua visão de mundo brota, em parte, do inconsciente coletivo, mas se mantém em constante renovação, inclusive relacionando-se com influências eruditas, embora conserve sua natureza própria.
Assim, aprendizado técnico e sonho imaginativo se irmanam. Autodidatismo e conquista de técnicas de modo empírico podem ser verificados pela ausência ou relativização de aspectos formais acadêmicos, como composição, perspectiva e respeito às cores reais. Acima de tudo, existe o compromisso de não seguir uma estética pré-concebida para criar momentos de marcante beleza plástica.
Desproporções, cores vibrantes, freqüente ausência de profundidade e uma criatividade espontânea caminham juntos em nome da simplicidade e respeito apenas aos próprios paradigmas em nome de uma verdade interior do que significa ser artista. Fiel a si mesmo, Marcus, com poucas referencias culturais eruditas e reduzido conhecimento teórico, enfoca, com autenticidade, cenas da vida cotidiana do Nordeste brasileiro.
Nascido em Ibiaporã, Mundo Novo, Bahia, em 11 de junho de 1980, Marcus Zayit é um autêntico autodidata. Isso significa que, embora admire as obras de Tarsila do Amaral e Di Cavalcanti, entre outros, não se apóia neles para desenvolver a sua obra. O jovem artista baiano não tem a pretensão de ser o seguidor de uma tradição de artistas nordestinos, o iniciador de um movimento ou de ditar normas para as gerações futuras.
Desde os seus primeiros passos, ainda na sua cidade natal, sua luta foi pela composição do belo, entendendo esse conceito como algo que, ao mesmo tempo, o agradasse plasticamente e lhe desse reconhecimento e condições de sobrevivência em São Paulo, para onde veio a convite do artista plástico Waldomiro de Deus e onde está desde 2002.
Finas linhas definindo contornos e cores intensas caracterizam os cangaceiros, as mulheres e as naturezas-mortas de Marcus Zayit. Ele conquista justamente pela maneira diferenciada como trata as suas imagens: com intensa energia e com o objetivo de encontrar uma poética visual diferenciadora, de modo que o seu quadro possa ser reconhecido e admirado como o resultado do progressivo amadurecimento de uma trajetória artística.
Dentro de uma técnica que se vale das cores chapadas e dos contrastes cromáticos, brotam personagens que remetem a romances como Vidas secas, de Graciliano Ramos. Os seus cangaceiros trazem o poder dos fortes homens do sertão valorizados por Euclides da Cunha, em Os sertões. As imagens clássicas, guardadas em fotografias e algumas poucas cenas filmadas de Lampião e Maria Bonita são evocadas por telas que exaltam lábios grossos, olhos bem abertos e narizes largos com contornos bem definidos.
Braços arredondados exaltam o corpo humano. O resultado é de intensa expressividade, numa obra que cativa o observador pela autenticidade. É de maneira sincera que o pintor se apresenta ao público. Em cada tela, há um mergulho na alma, presente pela aridez de alguns temas, pelos traços vigorosos e pela consciência do artista de sempre oferecer o melhor de si em cada trabalho.
Oscar D’Ambrosio é jornalista pela USP, mestre em Artes Visuais pela Unesp, graduado em Letras (Português e Inglês) e doutor em Educação, Arte e História da Cultura pela Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie e Gerente de Comunicação e Marketing da Faculdade de Ciências Médicas da Santa Casa de São Paulo.