Michael de Brito's paintings are the product of detailed observations of domestic gatherings and scenes experienced and inspired by different types of love.

PATRÍCIA BARNABÉ
Words

Originally from the Almancil area of the Algarve, Michael de Brito’s parents decided to emigrate to New Jersey, where he became the first of the family to be born in the USA. Despite growing up an American, Portugal permeates his work, with the artist visiting the country whenever he can, stunned by its blue skies, especially those of the south. A former student of Parsons School of Design and New York Academy of Art, he was just 22 years old when he painted his grandparents in their kitchen. The canvass offers an everyday domestic scene depicting a green and white checked tablecloth, his grandfather seated and eating, while his grandmother stands clad in her smock, preparing a dish. The result, Last Dinner (2002), was completed just a month before the loss of his grandfather, and De Brito felt that he had "found something" with the work.
"I was looking for a subject for my paintings, and I’ve always loved and been inspired by family suppers and gatherings. At the same time, I wanted to reference contemporary art, exploring Velázquez, Caravaggio and Frans Hals, underlining the human connection found in much of my work," he tells us. He also finds inspiration and strength in the portraits of John Singer Sargent, Édouard Manet and Anders Zorn, openly assuming the visual and technical influence of the Old Masters. "I spend time extracting the components that gave meaning to their works."

Employing both realism and impressionism, his paintings assemble a cast of characters engaged in everyday scenes that he imbues with energy, painstaking detail and tenderness. These models are family and friends, which is why the relationship with them is particularly "important". "I care a lot about these people." So keen is his attention to detail, so irreproachable his technique that, at first glance, you think you’re looking at photographs. His gaze surveys the beauty of shared moments or leisure time, and the feeling of plenitude that intimacy offers us, as if those people became ours.

According to De Brito, it’s about engaging people and a way of life he’s lucky to live. "I want those who see my work to assimilate my objectives and examine the family rituals and social life around them. I hope the viewer can capture the atmosphere, the intensity of everyone who is part of the work." The smaller canvases, which oblige closer inspection, become almost metaphorical. His backdrop, he adds, "is usually an isolated place that, little by little, has changed over the years. In other words, characters and objects unable to halt time. My work remains focussed on figures and the connection between them. As my work evolves, so do their experiences."

Recipient of the Frank C. Wright Memorial Award and Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, De Brito has exhibited in places as varied as London's National Portrait Gallery, the Afro Brazil Museum, the Nevada Museum of Art, ARCOMadrid, Galeria Graça Brandão and the Museu da Eletricidade. "I’m too crude as a realist painter," he remarks. "I seek truth, beauty and I find beauty in everything that’s true."