gX moving art 2006/gXo BIRATAN PORTO.pdf · 2011-12-18 · Porto’s portfolio also shows his skill with traditional drawing styles. Franc s, pintor French, painter Henri Toulouse

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movingart

vol 15 issue 1 spring 2006

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n the opening panel of a comic strip, Tarzan wakes up one day and decides to take his customary morning swing through the jungle. He grabs hold of his favorite vine and lets go one of his trademark ear-piercing yells

as he launches himself into the air and disappears into the trees. A moment later, we hear the thunderous sound of a massive collision.

In the final frame, we find Tarzan lying dazed and bruised on the ground, having crashed into a newly erected billboard which displays the familiar script logo of a beverage called “Tota-Tola”.

destruction of rainforests is no joke Funny? Yes, perhaps—until the full message begins to sink in.

Within this cartoon’s broad humour can be found a Brazilian artist’s passionate protest against the ongoing destruction of his country’s rainforests and the pollution of the world’s air, water and natural resources. Combining every genre of humour with a distinctive and colorful quasi-indigenous drawing style, illustrator Biratan Porto delivers an often stinging indictment of man’s global waste and wantonness in The Green in Red, his most recently published collection of drawings.

Symmetrical irony: a woodpecker prepares to peck on the wooden leg of a man who is about to chop down a tree.

Satirical but repelling: a globe vomits its garbage into a men’s urinal. Corny yet direct: an alligator looks sadly at his family photos: designer

luggage and shoes.

by Dan brill

cartoons anD ‘charactures’ from the amazon can a book of cartoons fight global pollution, or slow the Destruction of the worlD’s

rainforests? the humour of biratan porto Delivers Dire warnings on our eco-crisis.

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http://www.tarzan.orghttp://www.biratan.com.br

Absurdly compelling: a cast of eccentric characters waving long poles chases tiny clouds across a desolate landscape, ‘draining’ drops of water into barrels.

The Green in Red paints a stark picture of a planet desperately short of water, stripped bare of its forests and jungles—including the shrinking Amazon rainforests for which Brazil is famous. In fact, the survival of the tree is the book’s signature theme. Trees fill many shapes and situations, ranging from neo-

Zen (a thought-balloon in tree form) to baldly anti-militant (a half-eaten apple core flies out the open hatch of an armoured tank; farther back, along the road behind it, stands a bazooka-ravaged apple tree).

conscience with ‘characture’Ubiratan Nazareno Borges Porto—known to his friends and associates simply as Biratan—is a 55 year old Brazilian artist,

(left) Biratan Porto’s artist friends have created an impressive gallery of “Biratan” caricatures, which he displays with pride on his website. Shown here (next to a photo of the artist) are illustrations by (left to right) Gonzalo Cárcamo, Eduardo Baptistão, Dálcio Oak and Mattias Birth.

(below) The bright colors and cartoon style of Biratan’s book, The Green in Red, disguise a grim message of eco-crisis: South America continues to lose its rainforests to urban development and corporate ravaging, while global air and water pollution goes on unabated.

cartoons anD ‘charactures’ from the amazon�

born and still living in the northern port city of Belém, Para, which sits right at the entrance to the Amazon.

Over the past twenty-five years, Biratan has published seven humorous books of cartoons and illustrations, and has won numerous international and national awards (including 2002 first place selection in the prestigious International Car-toon Festival in Knokke-Heist, Belgium). He is an artist and musician, who loves playing his mandolin. And as a humanitarian and philosopher, he doesn’t hesi-tate to speak up against irresponsible environmental destruction. His views are expressed through his cartoons, which help to raise both awareness and financial assistance. A portion of the net proceeds from sales of The Green in Red (pub-lished first in Europe and due for release in North America later this year) will go toward supporting conservation efforts in his homeland.

Biratan’s current book project is the creation of a series of caricatures of famous figures, past and present, from the worlds of politics, entertainment, science, sport

(right) Although known throughout

South America for his humorous cartoons, Biratan Porto’s portfolio

also shows his skill with traditional drawing styles.

Franc� s, pintorFrench, painter

Henri Toulouse Lautrec

Norte americano, pintorAmerican north, painter

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(tOP rOw, lEft tO riGht) MAhAtMA GhAnDi, AnDy wArhOl, tOulOuSE lAutrEC (BOttOM rOw, lEft tO riGht) jOhn lEnnOn, PAul McCArtnEy, rinGO StArr, GEOrGE hArriSOn (PAGE 18, tOP) wOODy AllEn

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http://www.belem.pa.gov.br

and culture. Adding an inventive twist, Biratan designs each caricature around the initials of their name. Nonetheless, his strikingly accurate “charactures” capture each subject’s personality so well that they can all be readily identified at a glance, from Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Marilyn Monroe to George Bush, Mahatma Ghandi and Albert Einstein.

“These caricatures were actually born out of a joke,” Biratan says. “One day, I received a photograph of the great Brazilian poet and writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and I started sketching, using the initials of his name. I found myself enjoy-ing this creative challenge, and I started creating other caricatures of famous peo-ple, until I had assembled over eighty drawings. I began showing them to friends, and eventually it wound up developing into a book project and an exhibition.”

Like many illustrators, Biratan likes to sketch by hand, then scan his work to be colored in Photoshop, with final pages assembled in CorelDraw. In addition to caricatures, cartoons, comic strips, and illustrations for books, magazines and

newspapers, Biratan has lately started dabbling in animations, and recently created a series of short promo spots for Globe TV, a major Brazilian television station.

A visit to the personal bio page on Biratan’s website provides an intriguing insight—literally and figuratively—into the many faces of the artist. Not surpris-ingly, the sixteen portraits and sketches produced by friends and fellow illustrators reveal more to us about Biratan’s multi-faceted character than whatever we might learn through his illustrations. In both black-and-white and color, the various like-nesses show (predictably) a man with a love for life, humour and mandolin-playing. But the craggy features and weathered countenance also suggest a life experience that has witnessed its share of dark moments; the piercing charcoal eyes look capable of penetrating the soul of any man, woman or beast. And the double-edged punch lines of Biratan Porto’s illustrations deliver a clear cry, straight from the mouth of the Amazon, that time is running out—and that the green in his artist’s palette is quickly turning red. •

Biratan is currently at work on a new book of caricature illustrations, slated for publication in 2007. his whimsical “charactures”, which include famous figures from all walks of life, are each designed around the initials of the subject’s name, and project an easily recognizable sense of the character’s personality (see list of names below).

(tOP rOw, lEft tO riGht) DiCk ChEnEy, GEOrGE BuSh, COnDOlEEzA riCE, lAurEl AnD hArDy, QuEntin tArAntinO (BOttOM rOw, lEft tO riGht) AlBErt EinStEin, MiChAEl MOOrE, MArilyn MOnrOE, ChArlES DE GAullE, GrAPhiC ExChAnGE EDitOr DAn Brill

cartoons anD ‘charactures’ from the amazon

Norte americano e ingl� s, comediansAmerican north and inglish, comedians

Norte americano, diretor de cinemaAmerican north, director of cinema, actor

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gX moving art 2006/gXo BIRATAN PORTO.pdf · 2011-12-18 · Porto’s portfolio also shows his skill with traditional drawing styles. Franc s, pintor French, painter Henri Toulouse