“[Instructing] the eye to look

at all things in the world

as if never seen before.”

PAUL VALÉRY

 

AN EDUCATOR OF THE GAZE

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Clovis Ferreira França arrived at photography coming from
a training in architecture and a solid practice of painting.
So drawing (understood as design, perspective and volumes)
and colors (surfaces, textures, shadows and densities) have always

been at the center of his artistic practice.The question to be posed

is: why, at a certain moment did photography arise?

And why color photography?

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The turning point took place anearly two decades ago, therefore

such questions might sound formal or dated, in light of an

already consolidated and mature production.To me it seems

interesting, however, to set forth a possibility for the reading

and understanding of a world of images charged with humanity.

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Beyond the register of a certain moment or determined angle,
the artist’s photographs seek, or evidence, an empathy with

whoever or whatever is being captured and presented, introduced,

revealed. Slowly, silently, lovingly and poetically. But this is an

operation that takes place always on the basis of a record of lived experience, of the real. This is why he resorts to photography. And

it is in color, just like our eye operates. Like a master teacher of

this gaze, the artist leads us to situations that are not of discovery,

but of learning, of sharing, of the identification of impressions

and feelings that were already there, waiting to be revealed.

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Upon dedicating himself to this project (mission, the radicals

would say), Clovis operates as a constructor of relations, fostering

solidarity, integrating the individuals and contexts, distant worlds, memories and visions, past and present. In our contemporary

society of conflicts, the images that follow are moments that

bring us together in the reaffirmation of hope.

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MARCELO MATTOS ARAUJO

MUSEOLOGIST