Regina Silveira

Regina Silva Silveira (born 1939) is a Brazilian artist known for her work with light, shadows and distortions exploring ideas of reality. Silveira has used many media throughout her career but focuses mainly on videography, painting, and printmaking (including some lithography.) She is based in São Paulo.

Early life Silveira was born in 1939 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, but has spent much of her life in the city of São Paulo. She began studying art in 1950 under Brazilian painter Iberê Camargo; she studied lithography and woodcut in addition to painting. In the 1970s, she began experimenting with printmaking and video.

Education Regina graduated in 1958 with a degree in fine arts from the Arts Institute of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Occupying a teaching position in the same institution, she developed a sculpture and painting practice under the tutelage of Iberê Camargo, Francisco Stockinger and Marcelo Grassmann. In 1967 she was awarded a scholarship to study art history in Madrid.

Employment Regina Silveira held positions at many universities throughout her career. The first was at the Arts Institute of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, an institution from which she graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts from 1964 until 1969. From there she took a position at the University of Puerto Rico on the Mayagyeaz Campus from 1969 for four years until 1973 when she accepted a position at the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP-SP). She kept this position for just over ten years from 1973 until 1985 when she once again found a new employment opportunity. Silveira retired after a lengthy career from the Department of Plastic Arts from the School of Communications and Arts at the Universidade de São Paulo.

Silveira used virtual reality in two collaborative works, Infinities and Odisseia.

Encuentro (1991) was achieved by designing with a digital medium.

In his career she has investigated the perception of reality and what motives have visual images. Her artistic terminology contains different modes of representation in perspective, which circumscribe Skiagraphia (the study of shadows) and obtaining them from common objects to create duality and tension.

Work: themes and processes Silveira established herself as an artist during under the military dictatorship in the 1970s, creating ephemeral conceptual works such as videos, pamphlets and mail art. She "subverted expected meanings through paradox and enigma with the aim of destabilizing perception". She likes how shadows are intangible and therefore are in nature a very moldable part of her work that can be intentionally distorted and allow a certain image to only be viewed when looked at from a unique angle. Her work explores whether something is present or absent. For example, Desaparencia, from YEAR, depicts an easel and stool using dotted lines which indicates that although they are present as the piece of art, they are not actually present in the scene.

Silveira is represented by the Sicardi Gallery in Houston, Texas. She resides and works in São Paulo, Brazil.

Solo exhibitions

Regina Silveira also took part in many group exhibitions such as the Bienal de São Paulo (1981, 1983, 1994, 1998), the Havana Biennial (Cuba, 1984, 1994, 2015); Brazil: Body and Soul, Guggenheim Museum (New York, 2001); the XV (Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal, 2009); Philagrafika (Philadelphia, 2010); and the XI Biennial of Cuenca (Ecuador, 2011).

Notable exhibitions Regina Silveira has hosted and contributed to over 100 exhibitions throughout her career.

In Lumen, Silveira placed a vinyl lightbulb on the façade of a glass building which was dark during the day, but had the ability to light up at night. Blue glass additions were used, casting shadows and patterns onto the floor.

Gone Wild features vinyl insects taking over a two-tiered room with white walls, a repeating pattern throughout Regina's work – white walls with black vinyl patterns.

Scholarships obtained 1993 Pollock-Krasner Foundation 1994 Fulbright Program

Collections Celeção Itaú, São Paulo, Brazil Celeção SECS, São Paulo, Brazil Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA, US Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Museum of Modern Art, New York Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, New York, NY, US Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX, US Museo de Arte Contemporânea de Buenos Aires, Argentina Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, US Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan Queens Museum of Art, New York, NY, US

Awards In recent years, Regina Silveira has won several awards for her work. This list is not exhaustive, but includes many awards between the years of 1983 and 2013. 1985 Bolsa de Pesquisa, Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa, Brazil 1987 Bolsa de Pesquisa, Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa, Brazil 1988 Melhor Instalação 1987, Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil Premio Lei Sarney à Cultura Brasileira: Gravura, Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brazil 1990 The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship 1993 Art Studio Grant, The Banff Centre, Banff, Canada Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, NY 1994 Fulbright Foundation, Washington, DC 1996 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, Civitella Ranieri Center, Umbertide, Italia 2000 Gran Premio Del Grabado Latinoamericano: Medalla de Oro, Primera Bienal Argentina de Gráfica Latinoamericana, Buenos Aires, Argentina Prêmio Cultural Sergio Motta para Arte e Tecnologia, Voto Popular, São Paulo, Brazil 2004 Claraluz, Melhor Exposição do Ano, Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil 2007 Mundus Admirabilis, Prêmio Bravo de Artes Plásticas, São Paulo, Brazil 2011 Tramazul, Great Art Critics Award, São Paulo Art Critics Association, São Paulo, Brazil 2012 Award for Life and Work, Brazilian Art Critics Association, Brazil 2013 Prêmio pelo conjunto da obra, Prêmio MASP Mercedes-Benz, São Paulo, Brazil