Thinking about your trajectory as an artist, could you speak about how your artistic practice has changed since you were in school?
I attended art school when I was pretty young, interested mainly in developing projects in video, painting and drawing, although I wasn't aware of what kind of research I would explore in the future. One of our teachers advised us to keep working without thinking much about that because, she used to say, natural developments would come over in the works. Indeed, if I take a look at those first works, quite different from the recent production, it's possible to notice that some themes are still present, such as memory, intimacy, sexuality and image editing. After some years producing, I feel it's easier to understand my own research and interests (image consumption, visual culture that shapes our desires and expectations, image mixing - analog/digital, gender roles, etc) and I started to work with media I wasn't interested in during art school. I try to remain open and curious to experiment, explore new techniques (GIF, for example), construct new relations between objects, but still with a focus on my interests and research.
In artworks like Old Motivs I, II and I there is a preference for simple materials, like crayon and pencil, could you talk about your selection process for materials?
When I was a teenager, I attended drawing classes that had an academic/traditional approach. We used to "copy" images using only pencil, crayon and sometimes pastels. In a way, this experience stiffened my relation with the gestural drawing, but, on the other hand, I instrumentalize myself technically to reach some kinds of image rendering (the "realistic" image). These fragmented compositions and checkered drawings (it can be seen in some layers of the Old Motivs series) might be a strategy to escape from a realistic look. In any case, I have a lot of intimacy with these materials and I think they're much versatile, dry and useful, allowing me to handle and manipulate the image to create these fragmented compositions in both Old Motivs and Repository: a little a day is already a lot.
And thinking about the subjects itself, we find a multitude of references, could you tell us a bit more about this decision making and the specific images used in Old Motivs?
Old Motivs is a series of works about image consumption and image editing. Accumulation and after, rearrange of this visual collection. The images are selected by different methods, all of them related to the construction of desires, understanding erotism beyond sex - recipe photographies, landscapes I would love to visit, decorative patterns and, sometimes, porn. I borrow composition strategies from craft-works - in this case, crochet. Through this procedure, I recover traditional composition strategies that come from decorative items/crafts. Besides updating patterns passed from generation to generation introducing erotic themes, creating a counter-image I work with this knowledge culturally associated with the female practices. Therefore, I try to discuss gender roles and reflect on possible and new diversities.
Could you tell us a bit about what you are doing next, perhaps a new project or an artwork you have been working on?
Beyond the artworks in traditional techniques like drawing, I've been developing works on digital media, videos and GIFs, thinking about what happens when an image transits between analog and digital media. The process for these digital works are quite similar to the drawing process. Besides, I have been exploring the idea of action, constructing pieces of domestic use on paper, a bridal trousseau. In addition to creating the pieces, I elaborate ways to register the objects and, sometimes, the use of these paper items until they're completely dismantled. These paper "sculptures" are sewn on a pink paper that is quite popular in Brazil, used mainly to create modeling to sew or to pack products. Through this research, I aim to understand a little bit of the formation of romantic ideals by the gestures, but also aesthetics, and, above all, reflect on this gap of paradigms to dissident sexualities.
Canticle of the Creatures
Curated by Brunno Silva
OPENART Online Exhibition
17 September- 30 December 2020