José Rufino

José Rufino teaches in the Visual Arts course at the Universidade Federal da Paraíba and in the Visual Arts postgraduate program from UFPB/UFPE. He developed his artistic journey passing from poetry and visual poetry to postal art, and then to drawing and painting. 

In his artworks, he uses objects related to his family history like documents, letters, desks and chairs that appears in his installations, objects and drawings. A whole affective repertoire is presented in his work. The field of art becomes a place for a reinterpretation of the entire personal and family narrative.

At the end of the 70′s, attends extension courses from the Extension Coordination – Coex, at Universidade Federal da Paraíba – UFPB. He developed his artistic journey passing from poetry to visual poetry, and then to art-and post designs in the 80’s. The universe of the decline of plantations of sugarcane in Brazil led to his early work on designs and installations with furniture and family and institutional documents. Son of political activists imprisoned by the Brazilian military dictatorship regime in the 60’s, the artist is also well known for his impressive art works of political character. Lately, he has forays into film language and he increasingly develops a work mixing monotypes / furniture / objects and installations.The dichotomized dialogue between memory and forgetfulness contaminates his work completely.
The most recent research of the artist deal with the irreversible failure of the body and memories.

In the 90’s, he started to work on a series on installations, such as “Espaço colonizado”, “Respiratio”, “Laceratio”, “Lacrymatio”, “Plasmatio”, “Faustus” (Prêmio Bravo! Prime de Cultura), “Memento Mori”, “Silentio”, “Divortium aquarum, Ulysses”, usually dealing with social and political themes. The discussion of opposite notions – memory and forgetfulness, opulence and decadence – often appear in his production.

Over 33 years, he participated in about 250 exhibitions, including theSão Paulo, Mercosul and Havana Art Biennials and two editions of the Panorama da Arte Brasileira. He has also exhibited his works in solo shows in important art spaces such as Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba, Brazil), Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Casa França Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Museu Andy Warhol (Pittsburgh, EUA) and Palácio das Artes (Porto, Portugal). Currently, Rufino is working in a project in the interior of Pernambuco, “Usina de Arte”, that is transforming an old sugar and alcohol factory into a cultural space, where he has been carrying out series of works with former employees of the factory (Ligas, Opera hominum), as well as acting as curator of artistic residence programs and festivals. In 2017 he received the Mário Pedrosa (Contemporary Artist) Award from the Brazilian Association of Art Critics.