MARIA LAET: SITUAÇÃO DE ÁGUA

Situação de água / MARIA LAET

Curated by Luisa Duarte

In her first solo show in Galeria Marilia Razuk, Maria Laet presents a set of approximately 12 works, including photography, monotype, printmaking , drawing and video.

On this exhibition the artist deals with issues of memory - through traits, essential brands such as blowing, handprints, human gesture, and the persistence or disappearance of this memory. Also, dels with the notion of limit, taking this as a space of continuity , uncertainty, exchange, meeting and mismatch.

The title “Situação de água” (Situation of Water) poetically point in two directions, taking water as an element that leaves its mark in the memory of things, quietly, slowly and persistently, and at the same time as an element without limit in itself, which seeks movement and establishes dialogue in the encounter with the world.

In their actions, the artist is always in search of this tenuous and invisible line that separates things and people. Line that can be overcome and touched, promoting exchange. But here nothing is concluded: as the water, that does not show its limits overflowing, there is here this lack of edge and end.

Residing this delicate place and remembering his existence, this is what happens in the works gathered here by Maria Laet.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Rio de Janeiro, 1982., Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.

Studied at  Camberwell College of Art, where she got a master in 2008. Made a residencial program in Schloß Balmoral in 2009, and at  Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa, in 2010. Selected solo shows: ʻO que vive é espessoʼ, (Galeria a Gentil Carioca Lá, Rio de Janeiro, 2012) ʻGesto Mínimoʼ (Galeria Riccardo Crespi, Milão, 2010). ʻDesenhos de Arʼ (Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, São Paulo, 2010), ʻEu fiz o nada aparecer (verso de Manoel de Barros)ʼ (A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, 2010), and group shows: ‘18th Biennale of Sydney: all our relations’ (Art Gallery NSW e MCA, Sydney, 2012), ‘From the Margin to the Edge: Brazilian Art and Design in the 21st Century’ (Somerset House, Londres), ‘Convite à Viagem- Rumos Artes Visuais’ (Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, 2012), ʻChez Toi – Exposition Éphémère N.1ʼ (See Art, Paris, 2010), ʻO lugar da linhaʼ (Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Niterói, e Paço das Artes, São Paulo, 2010), ʻNatura e Destino (Galeria Riccardo Crespi, Milão, 2010), ʻTrAIN to Bad Emsʼ (Galerie Nord, Berlin, 2009), ʻO Contrato do Desenhistaʼ (Plataforma Revolver, Lisboa, 2008), ʻRealidades Imposiblesʼ (Fototeca Juan Malpica Mimendi, Vera Cruz, México, 2008), MA Theory and Practice of Transnational Artʼ (House Galery, Londres, 2008) e ʻPaper Trail: 15 Brazilian Artistsʼ (Allsopp Contemporary, Londres, 2008).

Multimedia artist, Maria Laet's choice of materials and mediums avoid meaning, any codification of sense, bringing nearer the very episode of creation. In her own words, “there is an act, as a ritual, in which the first poetry of the work is condensed.” In her creative process, she uses candid objects, concrete, accurate, like a needle or that bear quality of elasticity or fluidity, such as gauze, balloons, thread. She also uses natural elements or substances, such as air, wind, sand, wood sticks, chalk, milk, whereby her poetics of creation can be homologized to creative dynamics of nature, in opposition to the codified means of established artistic creation.