Ton Bezerra

I’m Ton Bezerra, a visual artist from fisherman people of Outeiro, placed inside the city of Cedral, Maranhão’s countryside.

In my childhood, I’ve established the first contact with art through my father, Nadilson Silva, fisherman and constructer of small fishing ships. The handicraft method of naval construction, whether strip and painting of these boats grew inside of myself a differentiated way of looking at things and the interest for the things around me.

By the time I was 18 years old, I was already living at Maranhão’s capital, São Luís, I had a new encounter with the visual arts with a neighbour, the visual artist Alfredo Araújo, who’s oriented me in my first steps on art. From that came up my first interesting on painting.

In 2002 I’ve conquered my first award in visual arts at the Salão de Arte-Prêmio Zaque Pedro de Artes Visuais, promoted by São Luís’s City Hall. I’ve conquered other awards in the following years in other Art Salloons of the city.

In 2015 I conquered the Prêmio Funarte de Arte Contemporânea, which has made possible to hold my first solo national exhibition at Galeria Flávio de Carvalho, in São Paulo with the curatorship of Clarissa Diniz. In April of 2009, the state of Maranhão has gone through a very turbulent political period, with the nullification of the so elected governor of the time. The politics that had been being held successfully at that government, including the cultural area, with the first-ever public calls, were abruptly interrupted at that context in which I was included. Provoked by those events and worried about the social and political realities that traversed me violently, it came up in me, the necessity to expand my artistic work through the performance art, as a way of establishing more direct contact with the public. My first work in the performance line, “O Corpo da Denúncia”, from 2011, is inserted in the city in a critical way, when I ran its main streets, and put myself in front of the government’s palace, vested with two boomboxes, from where echoed political speeches, which reported the corrupt character of a political family, trustee of somewhere, something quite appropriate for that context. From 2011 until the present time, I have presented that performance work as an instrument of effecting my own existence, in a powerful way, as defiance and critics to the current power structures. The result of this work has been being presented in several exhibitions through the whole country of Brazil, as the following:

“À Nordeste”, SESC, May 24th, 2019, Curated by Bitu Cassundé, Clarissa Diniz and Marcelo Campos, São Paulo

“Quilombo do Rosário”, Museu Bispo do Rosário Arte Contemporânea, Rio de Janeiro, 2018-2019, curated by Roberto Conduru.

“SeuMuSeu” – Expo-Experimento – Museu Nacional do Conjunto Cultural da República in Brasília, 2014, curated by Wagner Barja

“Parceria” show with Bené Fonteles at Museu Nacional do Conjunto Cultural da República in Brasília, 2014

“O Imaginário do Rei Visão sobre Luiz Gonzaga”, São Paulo, 2013, OCA Parque Ibirapuera, curated by Bené Fonteles.

14º festival Internacional de Performances ”Verbo” Galeria Vermelho-SP 2018, curated by Marcos Gallon

Verbo SLZ-Chão, curated by Samantha Moreira

SESC Confluências, (Artistic practices laboratory) 2018-2019, mediator, Ricardo Resende.