Olívio Tavares de Araújo introduces an exhibition of the work of Evandro Carlos Jardim, an artist he considers serious, upright, and aware of long-term standards in art. The writer notes that this was the first time the artist would be showing paintings alongside his prints (the work for which he was better known). Araújo explains that there is a deep unity in Jardim’s work, which consists of a single body of visual art that doggedly seeks to document the universe that surrounds him as well as everything he perceives, looks at and feels. In the text, there are comments on the various series that broaden the artist’s circle of recurring references, objects, and images, which come from daily life as well as the world of fantasy. In Araújo’s opinion, to Jardim, printmaking is not just a technique, but also a language. He continues his commentary on the modifications and transformations rendered in the matrix and the unique proofs that result from each stage of a series of images. The writer emphasizes the subtlety of this art, which may even pass unnoticed by people with untrained sensibilities.

This text is basic to an understanding of the graphic art of this artist, which was executed in the framework of some “series” while invoking the persistent Joycean concept of the “work-in-progress.” This exhibition was held in 1986, at the Galeria de Arte São Paulo in São Paulo.

Evandro Carlos Jardim (b. 1935) is a printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He began his work as an artist in the 1960s, while serving as a professor in the Escola de Belas Artes at the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP)—where the artist sometimes showed his work—, and at the Universidade de São Paulo, the institution that granted him a doctorate in fine arts. His teaching activities involved training several generations of artists who were strongly influenced by his work, initially regarded by some critics as mere virtuosity. However, starting in the 1960s, his work showed an unquestionable conceptual rigor. Another writer, Yvoty Macambira, wrote about the artist in the book Evandro Carlos Jardim (São Paulo: Edusp, 1998).

Olívio Tavares de Araújo is a journalist and art critic. During the 1960s, he was responsible for the art column in the daily newspaper Estado de Minas, and in the following decade, he wrote an art column for Veja, a widely-circulated, national publication. He has also published some books, made some movies, and organized exhibitions of work created by Brazilian artists.