Guy Benchimol de Veloso, Belém, 1969.

Law graduate. He has been a photographer since 1988. His work Investigate the frenetic search for the sacred, through pictures taken in varied religious manifestations in the deepest countryside of Brazil.

Rubens Fernandes Junior, a professor at FAAP-SP, and also an specialized photography curator refers to Guy Veloso’s work: “His images surprise us for being non-sense, for being surreal, for the complete dissonancy between the real world and the other world”. The photographer and curator Walter Firmo reveals: “Guy Veloso’s art consists in relaying feverish signs of a bunch of people enchanted by faith. The work is a document of his untiring and humanistic soul in cheering us into this faith militancy”. He has done some individual exhibitions, with emphasis on II International Biannual of Photography of the City of Curitiba, 1998; 5th Ibero-American Colloquy of Photography of Havana-Cuba1998; Congreso Comunidad 2000, III Encuentro de Imagen Comunitaria, Havana-Cuba, 2000; FNAC Library of São Paulo, 2001; Photoart Brasília (Festival of Light), National Theatre, Brasilia, 2005; Stella Gallery, Goiânia-GO, 2005; MAC-Museo de Arte Contemporâneo, II Foto America, Santiago-Chile, 2006; Museum of Sacred Art, Belém-PA, 2006; Universidad Santo Tomas, Santiago-Chile, 2007; Leica Gallery, Solms-Germany, 2007.

His masterpieces are present in renowned public and private entities, with special stress to the Joaquim Paiva Collection of Contemporary Photography; Itaú Cultural - Rumos Project; Museum of Photography of Curitiba; National Library of Rio de Janeiro; Museum of Modern Art (Belém-Pará), Funarte Collection; Portuguese Centre of Photography of O Porto-Portugal and University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art (UECLAA), Colchester-England.
Participate in the book “Visual History - Origins and Evolution of the Brazilian Photography”, Angela Magalhães and Nadja Peregrino, 2005. His recent work, “Between Faith and Fever: Portraits”, is an artistic and anthropological work; an “archeology of images” of a forgotten nation. According to the photographer, “ the search for a mystical identity that can lead us, and feed us with its symbols”.

Between The Faith And The Fever - A Documental With A Personal Look.

“Between the Faith and the Fever”, by the devoted and creative photographer Guy Veloso , son and inhabitant of the sunny city of Belém do Pará, portrays the saga of the pilgrims from Juazeiro do Norte-Ceará, the pilgrims from Bom Jesus da Lapa-Bahia and different penitents from the deep inland of the country, when ever year, they spread out, fervent, slapping the hot, hardened, muddy inland soil with the soles of their feet, paying vows, praying requests when “with faith I go, as faith does not fail”.

In some portraits there is the pride of credit, the definite pose of the one who is with God on paths decorated with flowers made of unnatural crepe, saintly symbolism; the passing of ribbon oscillating on the tenuous skin tainted with frugal consented sensuality facing the wailing wall; the mask covering the hidden face protected in the allegory of unfocused true dreams; the pious woman facing the saint with graceful white wings with a “coebeille” of green foliage picked in the field, a certain young woman posing with the airs of a “Virgin”, leaning in front of a gray stone wall, protected by Jesus Christ, parades a certain arrogance; eyes blind with faith; hands closed on rosaries wearing black cloth observe the sinners; the emblematic woman transformed and ambulant, protects herself behind the image of Our Lady of Grace, the illuminated virgin whose face unconscious, enjoys unrestricted afflictions; stunning frenzy transfigures the dark face of a transitory pilgrim in the rite of passage in the front of the Holy Virgin; young girls in white in the middle of backwoods, modeled by the exotic panorama among the trees without branches gravitate solemnly with wings of hearts and flowers made of cloth; other young girls, thus, carry the white modesty of the cape wrapped in the prayer of love; finally the Holy Supper brought by a withe-haired lady, who seem to carry the faith on the whole world.

The art of Guy Veloso lies in retransmitting feverish signals of a horde enchanted by faith. It is a documenta ry of his feverish soul, untiring humanistic who toasts us in this itinerant militancy that “faith does not fail”.

Walter Firmo.
photographer and curator ( Brasilia 's exhibition catalog, 2005).
* Gilberto Gil, “Andar com Fé”.