Rubem Valentim

Ruben Valentim was a self-taught Brazilian artist, who primarily worked with painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Born in 1922, Valentim began making art in the late 1940s, earnestly trying to develop a specific visual language which could speak to Brazil’s complex cultural heritage. The Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements in Brazil were flourishing in this era. However, Valentim felt a need to cultivate an artistic vernacular in order to meditate on the intricacies of the national identity as well as weave together formal geometric fragments with the spiritual iconography of Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda. Whilst artists such as Lygia Pape and Waldemar Cordeiro were stretching geometric shapes in a purist, modernist lens, Valentim applied this methodology to drawings and diagrams representing the orishas or deities of Afro-Brazilian religions. The works themselves have a distinctly joyous, sacred tone to them, with wooden totems organically spiralling upwards and his acrylic canvases boldly placing symbols in undiluted, highly pigmented strokes. Valentim is continuing to gain recognition posthumously for his immense body of work and his enduring practice, gaining much critical attention following a retrospective show at Museu de Arte de São Paulo in 2019. ...

The Approach is co-directed by Jake Miller and Emma Robertson. Located in Bethnal Green above The Approach Tavern, for over twenty years it has operated an internationally recognised programme from its East London base. The gallery is known for discovering artists and establishing their careers as well as making inter-generational curated group shows a strong focus. The list of represented artists includes the Estates of important overlooked female artists Heidi Bucher and Maria Pinińska Bereś, as well as seminal British collage artist John Stezaker, together with established and emerging artists including Magali Reus, Peter Davies, Lisa Oppenheim, Sandra Mujinga, Pam Evelyn, Sara Cwynar, Sam Windett and Caitlin Keogh. Over the years the gallery has operated parallel programmes in additional gallery spaces in London’s West End (The Approach W1) and in Shoreditch (The Reliance). The gallery is currently based solely in its original East End location and continues to expand its programme, showcasing its represented artists in the main gallery space, and both represented and non-represented artists in The Annexe, a smaller, more experimental space at the back of the building. ...