Works of the artist

                  In 1985, Ethiopia went through a very serious social crisis with thousands of inhabitants dying of hunger. Touched by this tragedy, I painted three paintings expressing my indignation and, inspired by Shakespeare, I used as the title for the series the phrase To be and not to have, to have and not to be, that is Ethiopia!

                  It seems to me that today, Ethiopia has overcome the crisis of 85 and is undergoing social and human development. Although there are still social problems, the country regained the dignity that all people deserve to have.

                  However, in other regions of the planet, there are still peoples and populations that live the drama of not having the essentials for survival while others waste, without the slightest concern for their fellowmen, just because they are thousands of kilometers away.

PAINTING 1 - The human essence (represented by the child) should be worth more than the territorial conventions that divide our species. This is exactly what I tried to convey in this painting, where the star represents the transcendental and the Earth the material, having as a philosophical basis the hypocritical conceptualism of flagged backyards. In this type of world system, the human being is on a scale supported by a world enveloped by technology used immeasurably.

PAINTING 2 - TThe world's political, economic and religious systems, represented by the painted flags, have the greatest share of responsibility for the inequality of the human condition, since they have sufficient power of influence to change this situation. Therefore, human life is found within a grid whose base is supported by some flags resting on electronic boards representing technological tools within which are found examples of injustice and violence against refugees, victims of the oppression and repugnance of the wealthiest.

PAINTING 3 - The child represents, in this case, all the exploited peoples who sustain, with their blood and sacrifice, the developed and rich countries. The greedy and vain attempt to try to suck a litt

Technique: colored pencil + oil on wood.

Dimensions: 100 X 150 cm

Year: 1989/2020

These works approach the violence against the human being and establish a conceptual symmetry among three different situations: the violence against those that fight for the ecological preservation, against those that fight for better social conditions and against those that fight for political freedom.

They establish a conceptual association between the three situations because the pictures were idealized through symmetrical compositions, which give reason to the titles of the pictures and create a link between the philosophical concepts.

Picture 1 – This picture approaches the violence in Amazon provoked by economical and ecological conflicts. The symmetry of the composition evidences the antagonism between the exploration of the forests in a sustainable way and its destruction due to a disordered exploration. That antagonism became stronger in the last years provoking the death of many rubber latex extractors and culminating in their leader's, Chico Mendes’ death.

Picture 2 – In November 1988, the invasion of Cia. Steel Works in Volta Redonda by the Brazilian army caused the death of three metallurgists who were on strike and were occupying the premises of the steel mill. The extreme use of force by the army caused not only deaths and injuries, but conceptual wounds among the workers, as they felt treated as enemies of the motherland just for demanding social and labor improvements.

Picture 3 – the invasion of the Square Ti an Anmen, in Peking, for the Manchuria’s Army (ordered by Chinese government), provoked the death of thousands of students and Chinese civilians that occupied the square some weeks and fought for a political opening in the Chinese regime.

This is a triptych commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of the famous Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch. It represents a reinterpretation of Bosch's painting called The Last Judgment, including the physical assembly of the articulating panel that opens as if it were a window.

The thematic comparison between the two works is based in the social issues of the late Middle Ages, represented by Bosch in his triptych, and various conflicting situations of the 21st century, such as war conflicts, ecological devastation, disrespect for life, pandemics etc.

Technique: Oil on canvas + objects on wood

Dimensions: 58 X 73 X 5cm

Year: 2016

                                                                                                                              Walter Miranda - 2016

This is the fourth version of works based on “Plato's Cave,” an excerpt from the text “The Republic” written by the Greek philosopher Plato (c428-c348 BC). The text describes the situation of some men trapped in a cave with their backs to the cave opening and unable to look back or sideways. Thus, their only conception of the world is represented by the sounds they hear and the shadows they see of people passing in front of the cave and projecting them onto the wall in the background.

The painting has the shape of a diamond and the central area shows the exact moment when one of the men get free and grasp the reality of the world. The other geometric parts of the painting show some images of the ancient and contemporary societies.

The use of violence as an instrument of domination and excuse to achieve shady or dubious goals; the use of political, ideological and philosophical discourses in order to confuse people's reasoning and remain in power; manipulation of information in order to hide the truth, etc. Anyway, any kind of attitude that serves to justify the exploitation of the human being by the human being has always bothered me and the way I use to express my indignation against it is art. Recently, the destruction of the two WTC towers in New York caused the death of many innocents, shocking the western world that saw Dantesque scenes live. In my heart there was a dichotomy of feeling shocked by the cruel violence visually exposed in that act and at the same time revolted by the disguised violence of some rulers, a superpower and allied countries, which disrespect the most basic principles of civilized coexistence between peoples of different cultures. Unfortunately, these hypocrites have used the blood of the sacrificed as an excuse to continue to hold on to power and continue to exploit diverse peoples who live in strategic locations (economically and militarily), committing more atrocities and injustices against people as innocent as those who died in September of the last year.

The triptych All Quiet on the New Millennium - II is my protest against these attitudes that only increase the level of violence and injustice in the world, generating more dissatisfaction among the exploited populations and serving as a reason for more madness and desperate attitudes by radical minorities. The result of this type of manipulation is always the death of innocents on both sides.

These attitudes and their results are not new, but the leaders of several countries (on both sides of the conflicts) continue unscrupulously using the blood of the innocent to maintain their political positions, maintain their material comforts, increase their financial profits and justify their acts of violence against peoples and cultures that they do not understand. Not even the promise of a new world in this new millennium has been able to sensitize the world's leaders in relation to human respect and cultural differences. For this very reason, we remain at the mercy of the old risk of traditional, bacteriological wars or even of a nuclear catastrophe.

One part of the triptych features the stylized American flag from which missiles depart threatening Islamic culture, represented by the crescent moon with the star, and another part features two free-falling planes that threaten Western culture, represented by the torch of the statue of liberty. These two images are based on the arguments of the two cultures (Western and Islamic). These are two opposing views of the same problem, where the two parts call themselves liberators and call enemies of terrorists. It is interesting to note that the speeches of the leaders of both parts are so equal that, if we think about it, they have unmasked each other. They only continue to pretend to be good guys because they feel protected by the system they defend and because many of us continue to pretend that we don't see this macabre theater where innocent people continue to pay for sinners.

This work was painted on self-made cardboard with the images being hand painted or edited using computer graphics and the computer boards were sawn and ground. The triptych's composition is constructivist and follows the mathematical principles of the golden relationship, a mathematical relationship observed in various creations of nature and already found in the mathematical studies of ancient peoples. Through it, I determined the golden rectangles and located several points and focal areas where the symbolic elements that represent various situations directly related to the theme of the work were placed and that force the viewer to examine the metonymic relationships of the paintings, causing questions. In this sense, computer parts represent the mastery of technology in today's society, which has often served as an instrument of domination by the wealthiest peoples.

My goal with my social criticism through art is to provoke the viewer, using an artistic and subjective language. For me, the most important thing is the reflection that the viewer takes with him after observing my work. I do not dream of transforming the world with my questions, nor do I intend to show that art can eliminate violence in the world, but I like to provoke people to draw their own conclusions about the topic addressed.  

Who has eyes, let him see!

Technique: oil + digitized images + objects on self-made cardboard

Dimensions: 153 x 96 cm

Year: 2002-2003

                                                                                                                                             Walter Miranda – 2002/2003

In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq on the charge that it produced weapons of mass destruction and that it supported al-Qaeda, a terrorist group accused of attacking the two towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC. At the time, CIA director George Tenet had previously informed President Bush that Iraq did not produce the weapons mentioned and had no connection to al-Qaeda, whose chief Bin Laden, was in Afghanistan.

 Still, Bush, aided by the United Kingdom, Australia and other nations, decided to invade Iraq.

After the invasion none of the charges were proven and the invasion created a destabilization of Iraq that culminated in the birth of the ISIS terrorist group.

The work called the Bush Doctrine - The Scarecrow of Death represents my opinion on American military actions in various parts of the world in the name of a policy that I consider to be wrong and malicious.

 The vertical part of the painting represents the image of “Uncle Sam” (symbol of the USA). In the head there are several images showing Bush calling for the invasion and playing to dominate the world, as well as military armaments, world demonstrations against the invasion etc.

The trunk and arms are formed by allusions to the American flag. The white and red strips act as a trail left by six B-2 Spirit stealth planes and two F-21 fighters that simultaneously threaten the world continents that are inside of two HDs with the inscription "We" in several opposing languages to the inscription “US”, which also means “We” in English and at the same time United States.

 The fifty stars of the USA flag are represented by spurs, in an allusion to Bush's Texan origin. The tails are represented by an eagle and the penis by a Tomahawk missile. The feet are represented by two Nighthawk F-117 stealth planes.

On the floor, a world map surrounded by bullets has several American flags planted on the continents representing the country's military presence in the world and the areas of the United States and the United Kingdom are filled with electronic circuit boards.

TECHNIQUE: OIL + OBJECTS ON WOOD 

DIMENSIONS 205 X 185 CM  (520 in X  470 in)

YEAR: 2003 

* Used objects: Sawed and polished computers boards, spurs, disassembled HDs, brooches, acrylic, ornamental objects, etc.

                                                                                                                                                  Walter Miranda - 2003

Bush Doctrine - The Scarecrow of Death by Flávia Miranda

Among many others interesting pieces of artistic works, The plastic artist Walter Miranda presents a panel with works of art that provoke deep reflections about the Bush’s current political world. In the panel, there are works criticizing the current North American politics (called doctrine Bush) and the terrorist actions. At the same time, the artist exposes works honoring New York City, victim of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The works join the traditional technique of the oil painting (in contemporary style) with the new technological medias (because part of the works was accomplished through graphic computation). A work stands out of the group: BUSH DOCTRINE - SCARECROW OF DEATH. It consists of a scarecrow with the same high and breadth wise of an adult man with the world map at his feet. The work is painted with synthetic enamel and oil painting, with the insertion of sawed computer plate, disassembled HDs, brooches, bullets, spurs, images worked with graphic computation, etc. It represents a critic to the political actions of the president Bush in the world. It is such a picture as an installation, because it extends from the wall to the ground, inducing the spectator to look it from several points of view and to interact with the art object. The different images and parts that compose the work are linked to each other but at the same time they are independent. They provoke a thoughtful glance of the details and a dynamic glance due the reasoning correlation between the parts and the whole. Certainly it is an impressive work that leads to intelligent reflection on the current world political map. It is an outstanding exhibition of strong visual impact and conceptual aims but with subtleness in the implied sense.

São Paulo, April, 2004. Flávia Venturoli Miranda

The Our Every Day Window series presents three pairs of philosophical questions: Technology versus Nature; the Human Condition versus Understanding Infinity and Ideology versus Violence.

There are three works painted on wood that are articulated because the window leaves can be opened or closed.

Window 1 - Counterposition of the use of technology, represented by the space shuttle, to the detriment of nature protection, represented by a forest being penetrated by a road.

Window 2 - Counterposition of the basic condition of the human being, represented by hunger, and the infinity of the universe of which we are only a tiny part of the designs of Gaia, the Mother Earth.

Window 3 - Counterposition of the human search for freedom, represented by the hand of the statue of liberty, and the use of violence to achieve our goals, represented by the atomic mushroom

Technique: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 100 X 60cm

Year: 1987-2020

1984 - GEORGE ORWELL'S STIGMA

Between 83 and 84, I painted the series of paintings called 1984 - George Orwell's Stigma. It is an analogy of the book 1984, written by Orwell, with contemporary societies. The series shows the inertia of people who allow themselves to be manipulated by those in power through force and information. In it, I painted people with faceted faces to show the robotization of the human being, who does not question the impositions of the political/economic systems and, therefore, becomes indirectly responsible for the inconsequences practiced by the dominators, which are represented in pictures by the words written on the shop signs.

Given the topicality of the theme, it is worthwhile to extend further on the subject. With regard to the book, there are many theses about Orwell's intentions when writing the book 1984. Perhaps he identified London and Labor Party in 1948 after the war. Perhaps he represented communism, fascism, Nazism or, who knows, he was even making a prediction. In my view, these theses are irrelevant in view of the problems addressed by him and that we live concretely through the perversions of power (today and at any time). The title could even be 1964, 1999 or 2020, because more than a prediction, some of the issues addressed by Orwell are easily seen in both post-war and current society, keeping some differences due to technological development, namely:

•        control of the individual,

•        invasion of individual privacy,

•        annulment of peoples' memory,

•        changing the meaning of words,

•        transforming people into non-beings,

• fake news.

The themes mentioned above can be exemplified as follows:

CONTROL OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Official information agencies, including those in the most "democratic" countries, like the United States, have complete dossiers on the actions of some individuals in society, in a form of "invisible control". The "relative democracies" of the third world implant delation at all social levels, sacrificing even the innocent. Few have the courage to help their partners or who suffered injustice, because behind the delation are torture and terror, whose function is to change and control the conscience of everybody in order to get social “Peace”. These "democracies" keep thought’s police forces that, through totalitarian propaganda and other artifices, manage to control even the opinion of enlightened people. Another example of social control took place in Miami where, in the 1980s, there were boxes with surveillance cameras scattered on the streets of intense commerce. However, at least half of them were empty and people, ignoring this fact, reacted as if they were being watched. Nowadays, the cameras actually film and record popular actions in various cities around the world and, at airports, cameras are able to perform facial recognition of passers-by.

INVASION OF THE INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY

In 1983, when I painted the pictures in this series, some governments had several pieces of information about the behavior and lives of individuals using, among other means,electronics, information technology and the violation of correspondence. Now, in the 21st century, this practice has expanded infinitely, considering the cases reported by Edward Snowden and Julian Assange's Wiki Leaks. It is well known that e-mails, phone calls, internet browsing and social media are objects of government surveillance and even commercial research. It can be said that it is the policy of probation in which privacy is in the background.

THE PEOPLE´S MEMORY ANNULMENT

One of the ways to erase a nation's memory until the 1960s was by changing the facts of its history. It is known about the existence of several altered photos, both by the Soviet Union and China and by Western countries, where influential people in the regime were erased by photographic devices for having become persona non grata leaving only the official version and no longer the fact that actualy happened. Encyclopedias and books were also frequently altered, annulling or camouflaging facts with official versions and wordplay. Today, with technological resources, it has become easier to make this type of change by reporting facts subtly deformed, according to the official version of each country, or government. A false story is also constructed by altering facts in school books.

Problematic is also the fact that social groups falsify news and facts on social media through videos and fake messages, as it is difficult to prove fake news due to its propagation power. And to make the situation even worse, today it is now possible with homemade resources to create fake news by altering videos where a certain person says something and the image and text are modified with such effectiveness and realism that only those who originated the video can know that it was faked, but she has trouble proving it.

CHANGING THE MEANING OF WORDS

Another practice of perversion of power is to change the meaning of words. In dictatorial regimes, it is enough to call by democracy the despotism in order to act arbitrarily against society.

During the French occupation of Algeria, the word "pacification", used by the French, meant for Algerians the genocide of their people. In the Vietnam War, the word "liberation", used by the Americans, had a different meaning for the Vietnamese. Some countries used the expression "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to justify a military invasion. In the Soviet Union “intellectual independence” meant mental illness for the central government. In Brazil, during the 1980s, we had the words “deindexation and purge” to disregard some inflation rates that compromised the family budget. Thus, it was possible to camouflage annual inflation. Even today, we have government officials who use expressions like "job seekers" instead of unemployed.

NON HUMAN BEINGS

For us Brazilians, non-beings could be identified as elderly, unemployed, immigrants without permission to work, Northeastern retreatants, low-income blacks, beggars and many others. In the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, it became clear that there is a significant part of Brazilian society that do not obtain financial assistance because they do not belong to the official social system. The same can be said for immigrants who tried to take refuge in Europe due to military and religious conflicts in the Middle East.

CONCLUSION

Today, after so many years of completion of this series, I see that the theme remains current as the material resources offered by technology have made easier to control populations by creating superficial needs and satisfactions that are distant from the essential needs for a dignified and healthy human life.

 Walter Miranda – 1984/2020.

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Three painters of the new crop, appointed by art critic Olney Kruse, show their trends at the collective exhibition that the Center of Arts Shopping News opens tomorrow.         

They did not know each other before the critic and artist Olney Kruse indicated them for this collective, taking care to personally select the works that each one will exhibit. But besides being new painters, who daily experience the hardships of a market full of medallions, the three have a strong point in common: they chose painting as a means of expressing their time - they reinforce this condition, by definition themselves as documentarists of their time. And the view that each one has of the moment they lives is reflected in their paintings.         

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Walter makes an analogy with the work of George Orwell, author of the book "1984", presenting robotic human figures, who walk through the central streets of São Paulo insensitive to the watchwords present in commercial stores. I want to show the inertia of the society that allows itself to be manipulated by those in power, as in the fiction of "Orwell", he argues.                                                            

IN THE FIGHT           

 Walter, in turn, says he has lost count of how many salons of art he participated in, since he has been sending works to everyone he can, since 1978, when he debuted at the 6th Young Art Salon in Santos. “The salon is great because it gives the artist a chance to show his work, he justifies. The first significant award he received, he says, was at the 3rd New Exhibition at the Center of Arts Shopping News, held in 1980, which opened the doors to his first individual exhibition at the Arts Center in 1981. In addition to this, he also speaks fondly of the City of Santo André award, won last April at the 11th Contemporary Salon of Art in that city.              

Lorenzetti, Cassiano and Walter will stay until the next 14th at the Center of Arts Shopping News. Their works can be seen from 9 am to 6 pm, from Monday to Friday, at 159, Martins Fontes St.

Technique: Flotation and graphite on paper and oil on wood

Dimensions: 60 x 60 cm

Year: 1982

In this three works I try to demonstrate that regardless the political system, usually, ideologies have generally only served to control the human being through dogmas that are based on philosophical concepts that are not practiced by those in power.

The result is the poverty of great part of the populations and the political control through the violence and fear. In practice, so much the capitalism, as the socialism and the communism (which for me was never put into practice, because what happened in the Soviet Union was just another dictatorship), has just been used to control the purposes of the people according to the will of the holders of the power.

Work 1 – Images that address the Brazilian social and political situation represent the result provided by the “ism” in force in the country in the 80’s decade. At the bottom of the picture is the stylization of the Brazilian flag with the word freedom in self-relief which represents the greatest desire of the moment.

Work 2 – The invasion of Poland by Soviet troops massacred the “Solidarnosc” movement, which had spread throughout the country, transforming itself into the possibility of obtaining freedom and social improvements.

Work 3 – The dictatorship imposed on the population of El Salvador, sustained economically and militarily by the United States, causes the same results as the dictatorships sustained by the Soviet Union. In the lower part of the work, the North American flag has the word EL SALVADOR (The Savior) embossed in allusion both to the name of the country where the atrocities shown occur, and to the North American arrogance that considers itself "the savior" of the western world.

Walter Miranda/1982

The transcription of the text on the painting I:

There is no sin on the lower line of Equator.

Below is the transcript of the text in the painting II:

Mt 11,21-22 "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. Mt 12,37 For by your words you will be justified and acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned and sentenced. Mt 24,7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. New International Version (NIV)

Uma ação militar com a simples finalidade vangloriosa provoca uma reação militar mais ufanista ainda.
Como sempre, os conceitos político/militares superam os humanitários e, novamente, joga-se irresponsavelmente com vidas humanas.
Esse é o resumo do meu inconformismo, com esse tipo de atitude, representado nessa série que aborda a arrogância de uma ditadura militar e de uma potência bélica. Ambas apenas preocupadas apenas com questões hipócritas, uma relacionada com a propaganda governista de uma ditadura e outra com a manutenção do status político internacional.

                                                                            AS OBRAS

XEQUE ARGENTINO - Em um tabuleiro de xadrex, quatro capacetes argentinos envolvem um inglês, numa representação da invasão das ilhas Malvinas pela Argentina. As Malvinas encontram-se divididas pelo tabuleiro, a fim de mostrar que durante a contenda elas não têm "dono".

XEQUE INGLÊS - Em outro tabuleiro, doze capacetes ingleses envolvem os quatro argentinos, numa representação da diferença entre a frota naval inglesa e as forças argentinas. Aqui também, o mapa das Malvinas continua dividido.

XEQUE-MATE - As Malvinas encontram-se agora no centro do tabuleiro, ou seja, já tem um dono. Sobre o tabuleiro, 3 vidros rotulados de sangue argentino e 3 vidros rotulados de sangue inglês representam as vidas humanas ceifadas inutilmente. No centro do tabuleiro, um sétimo vidro, vazio e aberto, representa a indagação ética que persiste para o futuro: Correrá mais sangue?

                                                              COMPONENTES DAS OBRAS

- Três tabuleiros de xadrez (um para cada quadro).

- Várias metades de cascas de limão, devidamente preparadas para evitar o seu apodrecimento, surgimento de fungos, etc. Estas cascas estão pintadas com a bandeira da Argentina e da Inglaterra, representando capacetes de soldados análogos a peças de um jogo de xadrez.

- Seis vidros lacrados, contendo tinta vermelha, representam containers com o sangue dos soldados mortos e feridos.

Abril/1982 - Walter Miranda

Everything that human beings do has a social function. However, within Art, I believe that at the very moment of creation, the work must have a social concern. The function will be the consequence. Therefore, in the series of oils that I developed and presented in 1981, I decided to address the socioeconomic differences that are representative of Brazilian society.

The initial idea was to present a scenario that presented “both sides of the same coin”. However, it would be pointless to use conventional situations, as the idea would not achieve the intended impact. That way, after some studies, I came to Social Transpositions.

I used the child as the main element due to its non-misrepresentation of concepts, which expresses for me, a rest of hope in our society. In all works, both rich and poor children look healthy to exactly reinforce the impression of purity, despite the social and conceptual oppression imposed by us adults.

For this reason, the paintings are presented in pairs with children in identical positions, but in opposite social conditions, in order to show human equality in natural terms and social injustice in human terms.

Walter Miranda             April/1981

These works approach the student manifestations in 1977 and the violent reaction of the policemen and military forces against the students. In the first work- The Argumentof the Force: policemen threaten the students with blackjacks demonstrating the argument of force. In the second work - The Convincing Power: policemen beat a student demonstrating a kind of convincing power. In the third work - The Reason Above All: two students aid a third one, with hematomas provoked by beatings, and one of them points at the wounded one and screams in the demonstration that the reason is above the violence. In the fourth work - The Price of Freedom: the smoke provoked by a tear gas bomb involves a military policeman that threatens the students. The students' escape is provoked by the military contingent that is behind the soldier. On one of the students a dove, symbol of the non violence, rests.