An Artist’s Statement:
The image of Carmen Miranda has been inspiring my creations for a long time. It happened after I painted her first portrait for a design project, a half face showing her exuberant smile. I showed the painting at Ward-Nasse Gallery’s Summer Salon (Prince Street, Soho, NY), and it was immediately sold. Since then, I started to get commissions for more paintings of her face in different sizes, different background colors and different expressions.
In 2016 I made an exhibition all about Carmen Miranda at Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, Porto Alegre (Brazil), also celebrating the International Woman’s Day.
Maurício Porto is a Brazilian artist based in New York. As a Bachelor in advertising and marketing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he also works as a graphic designer / art director. Porto’s artwork is figurative with a strong influence of Pop Art. With a talent for portraiture he didn’t study arts, having had only a few classes with a local artist from his hometown at the age of sixteen to learn oil on canvas. With a career of more than 40 years of painting, Maurício Porto has important exhibitions between Brazil and New York.
