She was raised in a home where gardening was of special
importance, surrounded by tropical plants and fruit trees. Her mother used to
tell her that plants should be treated
with care. Concern for deforestation and destruction of nature has
accompanied her throughout her life. She expresses constant interest in nature
and its importance to human life. Her love for nature and the essence of the
planet earth is reflected in her art work.
Her mother was a painter, while her father used to display paintings made by renowned Venezuelan artists such as Joaquín Caicedo,
Luis Ordaz, Virgilio Trompiz, Trino Orozco, López Méndez, Alirio Rodríguez,
Tomas Golding, Luis Salazar, and Manuel Cabre, among others. She enjoyed her
own gallery at home full of landscapes, naturalism, some cubism, and a lot of
Venezuelan impressionism.
In 1993, she obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture at
the Simón Bolívar University of Venezuela. During her studies one of her focuses was in the arts.
Her interest in the visual arts, museum architecture,
conservation, and restoration, led her to continue studies in the areas of
museography, conservation, and restoration at the Institute of Cultural
Heritage of Venezuela, the National Council of Culture, the Contemporary Museum
of Caracas Sofia Imber, the Museum of Fine Arts of Caracas, the Ministry of
Culture of Spain (provided by the Embassy), and the Casa de Rui Barbosa
Foundation (Rio de Janeiro).
While living in Venezuela, she worked as an architect,
research and inventory of the Caracas heritage, and as an artisan of Venezuelan art folk clay
pieces.
She left her country in 1998, and came back for a short
period of time. She lived in multiple cities in Latin America as well
as in the US where she found the opportunity to be in contact with the arts.
Between 1997 and 2002, she continued her education on the
language of arts, composition, color, elements of painting, and advanced
painting at the Laura Alvim House of Culture in Rio de Janeiro, Neptali Rincon
School of Arts in Maracaibo, Association Stimulus of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires,
ProArte Foundation in Buenos Aires, and the Glassell School of Fine Arts in
Houston.
Maria Brito moved to the United States in 2001 where she lives in Northern Virginia. She loves hiking through the woods and capturing photographs from nature.
Life in quarantine in 2020 prompted her to formally restart her journey into the arts and she is developing a series of collages and acrylic paintings inspired by nature and planet earth.
CONTACT: mabvisualartist@gmail.com
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I want to express my joyfulness at how beautiful and delicate is the natural creation that surround us. The greatest work of art is the
living nature, it is perfection that gives us life, but human beings insist on
dominating it, making it imperfect with acts to adjust it to their
taste and comfort, even going as far as to destroy it. Understanding the beauty
of nature, our connection with it and the need for it to survive, will help us
live in harmony and save ourselves from extinction.
Maria Brito.
Fall 2020.
