Considered one of the relevant voices within the Brazilian pictorial discourse in its diaspora, Renato Costa displays a work in which he activates the narrative character of painting and the possibility of managing -from the very center of it- the so desired “rhetorical detour “Son of the painter Manoel Raimundo Pereira da Costa (1943 – artistically known as Manoel Costa) and Luzia Rodrigues Costa (1949).

From a very early age he shows signs of artistic interest and aptitude. Therefore, he began his training with his father, who encouraged him to establish an almost self-taught learning process, based on the daily and constant practice of drawing and observation of the environment. This “practice established by his father, was intended to promote a high degree of freedom and strengthening of his own intuition. At the age of 15, he began to collaborate with some of the most important art galleries in his city, which were dedicated, at that time, to Brazilian and international modern art. These years of collaboration with these galleries allowed him to build a certain “trade” in his artistic work. In 2005 he moved to Madrid (Spain), where, a few years later, he entered the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Complutense University.

In 2007, also in Madrid, he met the journalist Maritcha Ruiz Mateos, who would be his future wife and mother of his son Renato (2013). He has, to his credit, a wide repertoire of solo and group exhibitions inside and outside Spain. His work has been validated by some critical reviews and endorsed in specialized media and magazines in Latin America. Currently, he has just signed as exclusive artist of the prestigious Miguel Marcos Gallery in Barcelona.

“The earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”

Mahatma Gandhi

The Latin title “OCHRA CASTRUM” (Ochre Castle) narrates the need to defend and preserve our most important treasure, the earth. The title also wants to make clear, the existence of sufficient resources for every man but due to greed, the problem of Hunger, is still valid today.

To make this pictorial intervention, inspired by the theme “ZERO HUNGER”, which represents one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the 2030 agenda, the first thing I thought was that I should keep, as a chromatic base for the work, the yellow Ochre color that is used in the multicolor wheel of the famous logo of the agenda.

Unlike the pure yellow color that presents almost equally a large amount of negative and positive symbolic charge, the yellow ocher in turn, is usually more linked to positive values, which convey optimism, energy and vitality. Because it is a pigment resulting from the extraction of open-pit mining and, therefore, having its origin in the earth itself.

Thus, the Ochre earth as an element that produces life and transmutes death into life, perfectly symbolizes the need for a change of attitude to face the challenges that still today continue to remind us of the tremendous absurdity of inequality and hunger.

The technique used for this pictorial intervention was the application of acrylic paint directly on the dress, without any other printing artifice. A direct intervention and as free as possible that has a double reading reflected in the front and back of the garment, forming a temporary narrative that illustrates the desire to leave behind a darker and unequal stage and walk towards a more hopeful future. The back of the dress consists of a chaotic and fragmented composition, where the darkest earth colors and grays prevail, illustrating images in decomposition, which appear as a prelude to the end of an era.

In turn, the front of the dress, works as a counterpoint to the back, where we see emerging, somewhat sharper images of farm workers, surrounded by animals that help them in their tasks in a more idyllic setting that evokes a greater harmony with nature. A composition with much more luminous and optimistic colors, indicating the direction towards a more sustainable and hopeful future.