Extract from the catalogue by G.S.Whittet

After twenty years dedicated to viewing and reviewing international exhibitions for the London magazine “Studio International”, which I directed until very recently, I think that the merit of a painting should not be attributed to skill or to a good-taste regurgitation of the history of twentieth century art.  It is necessary to see beyond, like a graphologist, to read in paintings the artist’s personality. Because art is, more than ever, the signature of a personality.   

As science advances, the arts fall back. To surrender to electronic calculators and to optical abstraction is to abdicate from the artist’s divine rights. Fortunately, there are still artists who trust the compass of their own magnetism. Noêmia Guerra is among them. From her canvases, there radiates a luminosity that is Painting, this precious substance that has suffered so much scourging from improper inventions.  

As a poet, I feel that in her landscapes and dances, Noêmia Guerra embraces life with a courageous happiness, a happiness that very few of us allow ourselves to enjoy.  As a critic, I am sure that her message is readable without needing to be “decoded”, as it is painting in its pure state and with universal meaning.

The point of interest of this exhibition is chiefly related to the Portuguese Algarve region, and to the remains of Petra and Baalbek in the Middle East. Both areas are very colorful. Noêmia Guerra has captured precisely the glow of these rugged, sunny lands.

Extract from the catalogue written by G. S. Whittet

Noêmia Guerra’s latest paintings are “fertilized” by her return to Brazil, to which the artist paid a short visit last year. She traveled to Bahia, whose capital, Salvador, is rich in the splendor of its 17^th and 18^th-century baroque architecture.  But Noêmia Guerra is not interested in historical relics; her spirit was stimulated by the people, composed almost entirely of mulattos, enlivening their effervescent environment. The great polyptych “The Salvador Marketplace” is executed in an extraordinary brilliance of color and movement.   

Each of the five sections represents a complete painting, to be appreciated on its own or as a part of the vast composition. Art is the instinct of the human race to give a magic form to feeling.   

Extract from the critique by Richard Walker, published in the “Arts Review”, London, October 25, 1969

In these landscapes and seascapes of her Brazilian birthplace, Noêmia Guerra has expressed, since her exhibition at the Alwin Gallery last year, broader aspects of her creative skills. Her current work comprises a rhythm, a strength and a confidence that go beyond the earlier, instantaneous, impressionist interpretations of the theme in question, to penetrate the immutable subliminal reality. This, the result of the artist’s continuous journey in her own psyche, gives her work a new penetration.  

Extract from "A CRITICAL CHRONICLE ON NOÊMIA GUERRA’S PAINTING"
George S. Whittet - 1987

I wrote in “Le Monde”, “Noêmia Guerra went back to Bahia (Brazil) in 1968. Salvador, the capital of this state, has splendid 17^th and 18^th-century baroque architecture, but Noêmia’s imagination received greater stimulus from the people that give life to the sun-stricken environment; the Salvador “Fish Market” is a singular work, as it is a work of art painted with extraordinary audacity in terms of colors and movement. Each of the five panels is a complete painting, which may be admired as such separately, but which even so is part of a pictorial composition. In my view, “the hues” arouse an exaltation, when they create a space and bring forth “the unexpected”.  

 “Fresh Paint” – Les Lettres Françaises no. 1312, December 10, 1969, by Henri Adam.

Noêmia Guerra, a Brazilian artist, dedicates her exhibition at the Jacques Massol Gallery to the dances and landscapes of the North of her country. Her paintings, beautifully luminous, are rich and velvety. We find light and warm colors in “Window over the Pillory”. Her “Beach of Itapoá” and the painting “Stormy Sky over Amaralina” give a calm sensation precisely because they are frenetic. Her “Aluja Dances” and “Changô Dances” are torrential. Explosive colors and a certain mystery characterize these paintings. 

Extract from “Journal des Arts”, of L´Aurore – by Monique Dittière, on December 10, 1969.

...The "Dance of Aluja" contrasts with her canvas “Stormy Sky over Amaralina”; one is all violence and dynamism, and the other plays on the sober side of the scenario.

A beautiful temperament this Brazilian woman has. 

Extract from the critique written by Mario Barata , published in the Jornal do Commercio

In Paris, the artist adventured simultaneously into two types of figurative realization: the beaches of Itapoã, Amaralina, Lagoa do Abaeté, in broad solutions, with substantial efforts and wide, colorful horizons, in a light ochre harmonizing with very personal greens …..  Always the purple and green tones that fascinate the artist and that have composed her personal color scheme up to now.  She co-exists with the chromatic and compositional serenity of her great landscapes, where the artist has reached the climax of her pictorial work up to now – to my own taste – without diminishing her other conceptions.   

Rocky Hillsides in Algarve - 1969

Oil on canvas - 120 x 154 cm

Exhibition at the Alwin Gallery

London, February 1973

 Extract from the critique by Richard Walker, published in the “Arts Review”, London, February 10, 1973.

Igneous, red and golden rocks, as if molten ore had appeared sparkling on the surface, cup-shaped dunes green as grass, curving down onto the purple whirlpool of the water close to the coast. Just like that idealized amalgamated ore, the paintings are not about what is in fact, but rather about what is experienced. In a complete and evident manner, these coasts surrounded by rocks are images made after a long, intense Summer in Algarve, attributed to its basic forms, and also founded on an economy that is not at first apparent

Extract from the critique written by Mario Barata , published in the Jornal do Commercio

Extract from "A CRITICAL CHRONICLE ON NOÊMIA GUERRA’S PAINTING"
George S. Whittet - 1987

After a very successful vernissage at the Stephen Maltz Gallery (22 Cork St., London) in 1977, I wrote: “I found Noêmia Guerra’s paintings even stronger and more dynamic in the imagery and energy employed. Her main characteristic is exuberance, with a command of one of the most elementary expressions of the life force of any society: dance. Noêmia’s favorite dance is that of Brazil, her country of birth: the samba. She paints men and women dancers, expressing their sensuality, in such a way that the tactile quality of her painting involves the texture and the orientation of her strokes. In some compositions, the brush seems to follow the forms and to caress the pigments, in a choreography that is patently sexual. The dominant tone is red, the red of roses, of sunsets, of ripe fruit, of wine, of blood, symbols of our present world of violence, but kept under control by the expression of a common joy, synthesized by the samba music, which is a reflection of the soul of the Brazilian people”. 

Extract from the critique by Cottie Burland - The Arts Review – May 4, 1977

The quality of the dance in the figurative paintings leaves a vigorous impression. The figures take part in a ball, in which many movements are instantaneously agreed and the instant is the moment at which the beholder contemplates the scene and understands its meaning. This is not a literary form of art. It is not necessary to stop and meditate, because its impact goes deeper than mere reflection. It is painting that comes from the heart. If the heart sings in warm colors, so much the better for the beholder and so much the happier is the artist.

In the year 1981 she had another exhibition at the Marcel Dernhim gallery. In the portraits, Noêmia Guerra took an important step forward in relation to the previous two years, achieving a remarkable simplicity. Knowing some of her models in person, and the affinity between them and the artist, I admired the honesty with which she showed them “in two dimensions”, in a generous, audacious and uncommitted summary.

George S.Whittet