“Someone asked me if Duda was famous in Brazil, his homeland,” said Julio Gomes dos Santos, the Brazilian Counsel General. “I would say he is very well-known, and tonight is a stepping stone toward him becoming world famous.”
Santos was one of over 200 people who crowded the lobby of Loew’s Jersey Theatre Thursday night to honor the publication of Jersey City artist Duda Penteado’s book “Beauty for Ashes.” The book, a combination of art by Penteado and textual contributions by a number of writers, gives an overview of Penteado’s artistic career from his origins in Sao Paolo, Brazil to his move to Jersey City five years ago to the his reaction to the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Set up on the walls of the Loews lobby were the canvass paintings by Penteado entitled “Beauty for Ashes,” which give the new book its name.
“I have grown as an artist and Beauty for Ashes reflects it,” said Penteado, speaking to the assembled people, which included family, members of the arts community, and city officials. “I have moved from love to mourning to hate to faith. My faith in Jesus has been a great part of my life.”
Remarking on Penteado’s work in a number of artistic genres, Dr. Carlos Hernandez, president of New Jersey City University, said that Penteado used symbols of death to show the continuity of human existence.
“In the early part of his career, Penteado used bones or images of bones not so much to speak about the finality of death, but about how life goes on,” Hernandez, who stated he has been collecting Penteado’s work for a number of years. “Later on, especially in sculpture, Penteado has the bones in his art talk to each other.”
Alluding to the nearby canvasses on display, which showed Penteado’s interpretation of the 9/11 tragedy, Hernandez made note of the similarity to Pablo Picasso’s anti-war painting “Guernica.” Picasso created the famous painting in response to the bombing of a Spanish village during the Spanish Civil War.
“Duda has evoked feelings of love and faith in the future,” Hernandez commented.
Rev. Leigh-Piatt Gonzalez, a friend of Penteado and the pastor of the Hope Center Tabernacle Church, where Penteado is a member, agreed with Hernandez that Penteado’s work reflects the artist’s spiritual life.
“There is conflict in Penteado’s work,” said Gonzalez. “There are images of spiritual war and physical war in his work.”
Among Penteado’s recent works, Gonzalez referred to a sculpture of the skeleton of a fish called “The Body of Christ” as an example of how Penteado blends his religious faith with his artistic creativity.
On display on the second floor of the Loews was a video installation entitled “Follow My Voice,” which had a voiceover narration of a survivor of Sept. 11. The narration was juxtaposed against images taken from an earlier video by Penteado entitled “Riding with Joca.”
Joca is a skeleton of a monster that is being shown pushed around different locations in Manhattan in a baby carriage by Penteado, who is dressed in pajamas. One of the stops in the course of filming “Riding with Joca” was the World Trade Center, the footage of which Penteado worked into “Follow My Voice.”
On hand for the event was Councilman-at Large Mariano Vega, who was credited with personally underwriting the production of Beauty for Ashes.
“I have collected Duda’s work for many years, and I know the importance of art in people’s lives,” Vega explained. “I decided to help him make the book a reality.”
Vega added that he has known Penteado for many years, having traveled with the artist to Brazil with a tour of Penteado’s work.
“In 2000, I traveled to Vitoria in Brazil for Duda’s art opening,” said Vega. “I accompanied Brazil’s prodigal son back home and saw his roots. It was there I saw the early influences in his life and his early paintings, done at a time when he struggled to find his style.”
Mayor Glenn Cunningham also welcomed Penteado to the Loews Theater celebration. Cunningham had planned to present Penteado and Santos with a key to the city, but had forgotten to bring the item.
“Just before I left to come here, I was checking the key and found out there was one door in the city it didn’t open,” Cunningham joked, adding he would have the keys to their intended recipients by the end of the week.