Since the beginning of the 60's, the painter Juan José Balzi is developing a plastic research which he calls "Images of 3rd. Generation", a "comunication painting" resulting from the gestual-pictorial interference over images of "mass media" with critical or esthetical intention.
 

Independently of academic bows being loose this new language brought to the artist's painting, the technique of recycling images and materials and a certain irrationality in the execution, allowing less wealthy sectors of the population to express themselves artistically.
As a matter of fact, in l994 Balzi was invited by the State Culture Secretary of São Paulo to lead the first "Painting and Graffitti Workshop Artistic Children", a proposition that aimed to explore the possibility of colaboration between painters and graffiters, involving homeless children in the execution of a complete artistic work.
Teenagers were brought to see and deal the space in which they live or lived in a different way: questioning their signs and symbols and defining their receivers. From a study of composition for choosing themes, classes included gestuality exercices, colour research, drawing and team work, up to the painting of murals on the street and in public buildings.
Besides two graphiters Balzi counted on the colaboration of Sabine Rock, a social pedagogue of Tübingen University in Germany, and Dalia Rosenthal a plastic artist.
In l997 the Göethe Institute presented for the first time the work of Juan José Balzi side by side with the works done by the youngsters during the workshops of l994 and l996 and in l998, together with theStadmüseum of Tübingen, who organized in Germany the exhibition, "Balzi and the Artistic Children".
To keep the workshops going on, the Secretaria de Cultura, of Sto André City Hall has incorporated it. At Cata Preta's quartier a methodology has been improved and defined and has just been registered at the Departament for Culture under the title of "Oficina de Pintura e Grafite Meninos de Arte".
 

Slaughter I.
1996.
Fabio (17 years old).
Latex on printed matter.
31 x 25 cm.
 
Slaughter II.
1996.
Fabio (17 years old).
Latex on printed matter.
31 x 25 cm.
 
Boy. 1996.
Marcus Vinícius (7 years old).
Latex on printed matter. 29 x 36 cm.		 Lampoon. 1996.
Mauricio (17years old).
Latex on printed matter. 34 x 58 cm.
 
Mural for TV Art from Germany. 1995.
Bruno (15 years old) and Romulo (16 years old).
Pastoral do Menor's Building. Latex and tar on collage. 400 x 300 cm.
 
Lampoon.
1999.
Priscila (14 years old).
Latex on photo.
30 x 32 cm.
 
Intervention. 1999.
Terezinha (13 years old).
Latex on photo. 30 x 42 cm.		 Lampoon. 1999.
Robson (13 years old).
Latex on photo. 30 x 42 cm.
Comercio Pedófilo. 1999. Gabriel William (12 years old).
Project for C.C. Cata Preta's mural.
 
Panel of 363 x 119 cm. 1998. Anderson (13 years old) and Luiz Carlos (12 years old).
 
Detail of
former panel
 
The teenagers's works dialogue in a most direct way with the master's. The subjective capacity of expression aroused in these children shows the thoroughness of the phenomenon known as osmosis created among them. Even if these individuals were being constantly stimulated- , the fact is that they were completely raw and at the end of the process they were excellent both regarding the fine arts and the radical social and personal critic.
(...) That children are an infinite source of creative potential is known by all but we are referring here to people who have gathered from early childhood an intensive dose with which to nourish their "offspring" if we accept the idea the old motto of the relation between "art and pain". Then we have the impression that, although completely unconscious, there has been an intrinsic need to activate the key that would allow the liquid which was nearly overflowing from the glass to spill free and although there are many different ways- didactic or not- to free these children (even economically) I confess that I had never seen before a pictorial result so truthful.
In these works also convey a summary of all the cultural problems of Brazilian metropolis, with their children in the streets waiting for something new to happen. It is a clear answer that even in the outskirts of that which we call "society", the children know what is happening here and abroad, and have an individual opinion about it.
Dália Rosenthal, 1996.