This folder includes selected illustrations of Céu, taken from magazines, books, puzzles, posters, music booklets, exhibitions, and prints. Most of the art presented here was produced entirely on paper, using mixed media, typically pencil, crayon, watercolor, and pen. Some of the art was done with regular gray pencils and colored digitally. Or entirely digital.
Comments from Céu:
I like to mix simple graphic patterns and highly geometric compositions with the classical perspective of light and shadow. It’s a very conscious choice. I clearly identify, in my aesthetic preferences, that I was influenced by classical Italian art from my Italian parents. And, on the other hand, there’s my interest in Brazilian indigenous art, motivated by my experiences with Brazilian nature and its pre-Columbian population.
It’s also true that modern art, especially movements like Cubism, Fauvism, Primitivism, and Nabi, were profoundly influenced by indigenous art and Eastern graphic paintings. So, again, we have this: two visions: the collision of the graphic plane with a classical vanishing point.
And since I’m primarily an animation artist, I always make sure to distort shapes for fun and expression, but not excessively, so as not to compromise the average audience’s ability to understand what they see.
So, I make my cartoons and animals funny, but playing with some artistic concepts, from the classic to the native.
That’s it! Maybe… Ask someone else to be sure.
Of the works presented here, I highlight the Jivas series. Jiva, a Sanskrit word, roughly means “That which causes life, the personal soul.”
All the drawings were created primarily with gray pencil and some touches of black pen and India ink.
They are an attempt to represent the theory of Professor Eduardo de Cunha Farias, with whom I studied years ago. The Professor is a biologist and embryologist, and his ideas about the incarnation of any living being propose an explanation for how we project the form of immaterial beings, such as angels and elementals, in our minds. Based on his studies and this work of Jivas, I found the basis for my character designs.
I think the Sustainable-Unsustainable illustration also deserves a mention.
It’s probably one of my drawings that has been most reprinted and used around the world, in various publications, all about the environment or related topics.
The illustration very clearly explains the difference between the two ways of life: Sustainable and Unsustainable. I originally created it as a cartoon sequence in my educational documentary “Yandu Expedition.” Scientists from the UK, Austria, and China praised it highly, saying it easily clarifies a concept many people didn’t understand, and I decided to reproduce it in a single art panel.
I’ve lost count of how many reproductions it has had in different countries.
Céu D´Ellia
