BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR BONI 

José Bonifácio Guimarães do Nascimento was born in Muaná, Marajó archipelago, Pará, a city with riverside characteristics, rich in fish, shrimp, and açaí. At 16 years of age, he left his hometown for Macapá-AP. Working in the capital of Amapá, Boni continued his studies, entering high school at the Escola Tiradentes. In the 1980s, he studied drawing and painting at the Escola de Artes Cândido Portinari, where he remained for two years in artistic training. In 1992, Boni entered the highly desired higher education program at the Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP).

His enrollment in the Art Education program, with a Qualification in Visual Arts, marked his academic trajectory. He studied with important visual artists, such as Raimundo Pantaleão and Ronaldo da Gama, and interacted, at that time, with other artists, such as Paulo Rodrigues and Limeira. The 1996 public civil service examination sealed his professional goal when he was admitted as an Art teacher to the permanent staff of the state school system. He applied for a drawing and painting position at the Escola de Artes Cândido Portinari.

In his teaching career, Bonifácio shared knowledge and also learned under the influence of some artists from the time he was a drawing student: "Ivan, in color mixtures; Da Gama, in creative strokes; Limeira, in exquisite drawing; Porto, in the expression of drawing...".

Throughout his 30-year teaching career, exclusively at the Centro de Educação Profissional em Artes Visuais Cândido Portinari, professor-artist Bonifácio obtained two titles on his resume: Improvement (2007) and Specialization (2014), with the Lato Sensu Postgraduate Course in Teaching in Professional Education, from the Federal Institute of Amapá (IFAP). He participated in numerous collective exhibitions, such as the 1996 Expofeira, the 1999 Biennial of Natural Art, and the exhibition entitled Propriedade do Traço, in 2003. His artistic participation reveals an understanding of the world, translated into unique colors, strokes, and textures of his way of being an artist. In this life process, José Bonifácio started a family 32 years ago with his wife, Shirley, with whom he had his children João Vitor and Bárbara Cristina, inspirations and motivations in his existence as a whole.

Throughout Boni's productions, it is possible to perceive the search for an art built to the point of configuring it in a materiality. They are images worked as if at the carpenter's scratch, stroke by stroke, as if assembled over layers and modules, until the image erupts in relief. The straight lines function as demarcations in the composition, extrapolating limits, transgressing planes and quadrants, overcoming traditional linear perspective. Wood, incidentally, has been a frequent and apparent medium in José Boni's authorship, something that highlights a relationship between the tactile textures of wood, in its rawness and natural beauty, and the graphic textures of his artistic work. Furthermore, Boni proves to be a color researcher, a colorist of mixed media, obstinate in building chromatic effects as a pictorial resolution for the world, rich in contrasts, intensity, and light.

In his first solo exhibition, Boni brings together a collection of nine series, totaling thirty-three works and constituting a diverse repertoire of two-dimensional pieces, including canvases, mixed media, and objects. This is a condensed production over the last seven years, but matured after 30 years in the profession, until reaching the important decision to hold a solo exhibition, providing Amapá society with the opportunity to contemplate a dazzling display of visual arts from someone who dedicated a lifetime to this craft: being an Amazonian professor-artist.

Text published on September 25, 2026.