Mauro Neri

Male Feminist like myself are not too common. The macho brutish theme that is instilled on men tend to cause them to not recognize how women are treated differently and lower than men still in the 21st century. Brazil is a very macho and masculine society and tends to only see women as eye candy. There have been many women activist, using art, to push for equality in their society. Mauro Neri is an outlier because he is a male. He is a mural artist who likes to call his work Infograffiti. It is a long ongoing work that highlights the oppression black and indigenous women face in Brazilian society. When I see his work, it feels as though it is aimed for the male viewer. Aimed for him to look inside himself and see how his own thinking and actions has and is causing irreputable pain to women, specially black and indigenous.

Here we see the woman asking the world to let her blossom. The detail is amazing, especially when you look into her face. You see pain but hope. Sadness yet light. The waviness of the plant almost represent a path for her to go.

When I look at this, I see a stylized woman with lush lips and beautiful green eyes looking up as in a photoshoot. But you also she a figure in anguish escaping the head. This says to me that a woman is said to sit and look pretty, but it causes her to lose herself. Just let her be herself.

For this, I would rather the viewer to look and come up with that they think on their own. The colors with gray scale help to bring a larger canvas than what the wall gave.

She could be looking out for someone, for something, or maybe hope. The woman is in the dark, looking out for something that can her out of despair.