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 Flávio PinheiroJournalist |
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"Caricature is exaggeration, deformation. I say this as a consolation for my own caricature as made by Leo Martins. In a few lines there is a fat toad seen from profile. Fallen down cheeks engulf a reasonably remarkable nose making it seem insignificant. Even the still not scarce hair disguise what looks like a double chin that unexpectedly climbed up to the face. The eyes, once already called fish eyes, became mere details. As well as the reading glasses, held between the fingers. I don´t recognize myself in the drawing. I´d better say: I don´t want to recognize myself. I don´t have those allegories typical from faces made for caricature with their exuberant features such as immense ugliness, clown nose, dyed hair locks or even the absence of hair, thick or disarranged eyebrows, equine teeth, beards, speckles and remarkable accessories (thick framed glasses, cigar, pipe). Or at least I expected I lacked all this. Indeed, Leo discovered my most distressing particularities, those I prefer to not see when I look in the mirror, those I abjure as defining signals, those that came within the years and overcame the ones from youth. Sad? No. Most of times it´s funny, specially when it´s not made to us. Caricature comes from expressionism. It presupposes astuteness that explores gestural extravagances, discovers impressions that character and soul leave on the face. In Leo Martins´ portfolio there are great examples of this skill: Carlos Drummond de Andrade (brazilian writer) with his small eyes out of his face, Chet Baker contorted by lacerating agony, Camille Paglia marked by the white hair lock. All this is the product of an art that, for Leo, runs from some corner of his uncoscious to the extremity of the pen. Don´t ask him to explain it. Not only because he´s still a boy at talking but because his real expression is the line. He cultivated his talents with Cássio Loredano (brazilian caricaturist), a master in this art, that is the youngest fifty-year-olded man I know. I´ve been glad to read in an interview given to Mario Sergio Conti (brazilian journalist) that Rodrigo Naves (brazilian arts expert) raises up Loredano to the condition of great artist, superb in the art of caricaturing. It will still take decades of life and pictorial experience for Leo to reach this level of art. But if he lets himself grow mature he´s got all he needs to achieve this." |
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Leo Martins is a self-taught caricaturist. He began his professional carreer back in 1995, after giving up architecture school. Since then, he was published in several newspapers and magazines in Brazil and awarded in many editions of Salão Carioca de Humor, a respected yearly humor exhibition. His drawings already embellished pages and covers of newspapers such as Folha de São Paulo, Jornal do Brasil, O Dia and Gazeta Mercantil Latino-Americana - this one distributed to many countries in Latin America - and also magazines such as Veja Rio, Veredas and Cult among others, as well as long-term collaborations with the magazine of Confederação Nacional da Indústria and, specially, the extinct news website Notícia e Opinião (News and Opinion), where he met some of the best journalists who currently produce another on-line publication: No Mínimo, featuring his artwork daily on its first page.
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