The exhibition Surge et veni presents a new generation of Brazilian painters, aged between 25 and 34. The project by Millan recognizes artists at the beginning of their careers, some of whom are new to the art circuit and others who have already started to be assimilated by the market. This justifies, in a sense, the title of the group show, inspired by a passage from the Song of Songs, musically reworked by Monteverdi in 1610.

In this excerpt of the classic love poem, a young woman is invited to meet King Solomon’s chambers. The young woman, a sunburnt rural worker, is welcomed with pomp and is rewarded for her persistence. “Surge, amica mea, et veni” [“Rise, my friend, and come”], sings the tenor in the first motet (Nigra sum) of Vespro della Beata Vergine, by Monteverdi. Implicit in this invitation is the poetic promise that the rainy season will pass and that the winter will give way to spring.

Since the use of the Latin translation of the Old Testament in Monteverdi’s work, the word “surge” incorporates new metaphors. In Monteverdi, the Latin term “surgere” has the original Vulgate meaning of rising. In this exhibition, it is associated with the ascension of five young painters at the dawn of their professional lives, in that latent state that ancient Latin defined as “latēre,” “to be hidden.”

Three of the artists here are from São Paulo: Bruno Neves, Lucas F. Rubly, and Thiago Hattnher. The two female painters, Beatrice Arraes and Rayana Rayho, were born in Fortaleza and Recife, respectively. Beatrice, from Ceará, is the youngest of the group. Rayana, from Pernambuco, has also participated in exhibitions in the northeast.

Curiously, an attachment to the Italian metaphysical school (especially Morandi) unites the two São Paulo artists, as well as, more distantly, to members and followers of the Barbizon school, known as such because it was active (from 1830 to 1870) in the city of Barbizon, on the border of the Fontainebleau forest, bringing landscape painters together.

Yet, unlike the Barbizon painters (Daubigny and company), Thiago Hattnher and Lucas F. Rubly do not practice painting “en plein air,” meaning outdoors, but in the confines of their studios. These are landscapes constructed based on the memory of places, particularly (in Hattnher’s case) the road that links São Paulo and São José do Rio Preto, where he spent his childhood, recalled in oil canvases that register the remaining impressions of that journey. His more recent canvases recreate covers of artists’ books, including one that pays tribute to the North American musician and composer John Cage (1912-1992).

Lucas F. Rubly, meanwhile, dialogs with Alfred Wallis (1855-1942), an English painter of harbor scenes and, among the modern artists, Morandi (1890-1964), evoking the same atmosphere of the Via Fondazza landscapes the Italian painted in the 1950s.

Bruno Neves, the third São Paulo artist, adopts other references. During the embryonic stage of his painting, in 2015, his gaze was directed towards artists such as Judith Lauand and Mira Schendel, as well as historic names from the neo-concrete movement (Lygia Clark, among others). His painting, although evocative, suggesting a connection with the surrounding landscape, is fundamentally anchored in geometry.

Beatrice Arraes, who recently opened her first solo show in Fortaleza, researches popular design and incorporates graphic symbols from that culture in her work. The memory of the passage of time is the thematic center of her work, which justifies her appreciation of Morandi’s painting, like the São Paulo artists mentioned above.

Rayana Rayo, daughter of a painter, produces abstract canvases that often allude to existential experiences (indeed, her self-portraits represent a form of self-knowledge, as in Rembrandt). In this exhibition, she shows her most recent paintings, which have an organic, visceral quality.