Beatriz Milhazes

Beatriz Milhazes is known for colorful, densely layered paintings and prints that combine bold patterns and sensual motifs—botanical garden flowers, Carnival costumes, ocean views, and Baroque colonial architecture, for example—inspired by her native Rio de Janeiro. Milhazes paints onto plastic sheets, then transfers the images to canvas after they dry. This unusual process, inspired by collage, creates smooth surfaces and crisp lines. While the artist’s work reflects a distinctly Brazilian vernacular, her practice embraces cultural hybridity. She has been variously inspired by Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, the mid-century Op art movement, and Brazilian modernists including Tarsila do Amaral. Milhazes has exhibited in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Los Angeles, London, Basel, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, and beyond. In 2003, she represented Brazil at the Venice Biennale. Her work has sold for seven figures at auction and belongs in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Fondation Beyeler, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museo Reina Sofía, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, among others.