Beatriz Milhazes (Brazilian, b.1960) is a painter, printmaker, and collage artist associated with the Pattern and Decoration movement, and best known for her colorful, ornamental surfaces inspired by Brazilian cultural imagery. Born in Rio de Janeiro, she studied social communication at the Faculdades Integradas Hélio Alonso, and the Escola de Artes Visuais. Since 1987, she has worked in a studio in Rio de Janeiro near the city’s botanical gardens, which have inspired the leaf-like patterns in her work. Other influences include the work of landscape architect Roberto Burle, and Modernist painters
Tarsila do Amaral (Brazilian, 1896–1973) and
Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944). Milhazes saturates the surfaces of her work with baroque patterns that incorporate everyday materials, such as
Cacao (2004), which layers floral shapes with chocolate bar wrappers. In 2005, Milhazes completed a commission for the Gloucester Road Tube station, titled
Peace and Love, which fills 19 vaulted arches with her signature colorful patterns. She has held solo exhibitions at museums, such as the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Fondation Cartier in Paris. Her work is included in several museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. She lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.