Exhibition "Where I wanted to be", by Marjô Mizumoto

A Anita Schwartz Gallery opens the exhibition Where I wanted to be to be, of Marjo MizumotoThe exhibition brings together ten large-format paintings — with canvases reaching up to 2,5 meters in height — and marks the first solo show of the São Paulo-based artist in Rio de Janeiro.

Composed mostly of original works conceived for the solo exhibition, the collection presents scenes of daily domestic life, family gatherings, and moments of leisure that, in Marjô's painting, gain emotional density and visual force. These are images constructed from everyday photographs, reorganized into compositions that suspend time and transform the banal into pictorial matter.

The paintings operate from a containment of time. Time does not advance, it concentrates. Small gestures, everyday situations, and intimate encounters are displaced from their daily function and come to occupy the center of the scene, accentuated by chromatic choices, framing, and symbolic elements that amplify their meanings. The result is images that seem familiar at first glance, but which, little by little, instill a slight sense of estrangement and invite the gaze to linger.

The scenes don't confine themselves to a single meaning. They suggest what came before and what might come after, activating the viewer's memory and experience. By bringing together references from different times, such as childhood, adulthood, personal memories, and collective images, the artist creates compositions in which past and present coexist on the same plane.

Curator Vanda Klabin, who wrote the exhibition's introductory text, highlights that Mizumoto "manipulates the strongly figurative visual language through narrative devices, directing the gaze towards the universe of fragments of everyday domestic life that operate within her poetic orbit." According to Vanda, the artist starts with recognizable images from common life which, "when inflamed by a pulsating iconography, cause banal or ephemeral events to acquire an unexpected visual density, sometimes making previously familiar representations seem strange."

Painting is the central territory of Marjô, a graduate in Fine Arts from the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP), since the beginning of her career in 2008. Throughout almost two decades of her work, one axis has remained constant: an interest in human relationships. “What has always remained in my work are relationships. I feel it's something silent, but one of the most important things in life,” she states. If before her attention focused more on the isolated individual, today the focus shifts to what happens between people, such as care, coexistence, and shared time.

This shift intensifies after the experience of motherhood, which decisively influences her pictorial research. “I began to understand my painting much more from the perspective of relationships than the individual. I learned to care, and my gaze turned to that place of care,” the artist comments. Even when portraying a single figure, the scene suggests a presence outside the frame, as if the observer were also involved in that moment.

In this context, *Where I Wanted to Be* can be read from a critical shift in the representation of motherhood. Instead of reiterating the woman as the central and naturalized figure of care, Mizumoto redistributes this role within the scene. In some paintings, the male figure assumes gestures of attention and domestic care, a presence still rare in the history of art. At the same time, the artist absents herself as a character to occupy the place of the observer and recorder, influenced by a strong family memory: "My father never appeared in the photos because he was the one who took them," she recalls. By adopting this point of view, Marjô displaces motherhood from an idealized place and affirms the possibility of the woman withdrawing from the scene to exist as a gaze and authorship.

This gesture of distancing herself as a character unfolds directly in the way the artist constructs her images. The work process involves combining multiple images and affective references, brought together in a single scene. “I take many photos during the day and then construct the painting from them. It's not a reproduction of the photo, it's a constructed scene, almost like a frame from a film,” explains Marjô. This operation creates a field open to the viewer's projection, who frequently recognizes fragments of their own memory in the images.

According to Vanda Klabin, “by removing images from their everyday nature and expanding their meanings through a partial narrative, Marjô interrupts the flow of time and redirects the observer to new axes of reading and meaning.” In this process, the trivial becomes an object of plastic investigation, and the scenes cease to be fleeting, consolidating themselves as autonomous visual compositions.

The relational dimension also permeates the scale of the works. Executed in large formats, the paintings expand the intimacy of the scene and project it into the exhibition space, creating a relationship of physical proximity with the public. What could remain restricted to the private sphere, such as the home, family, rest, and childhood, gains a public and symbolic dimension.

The works gathered in Where I Wanted to Be address childhood, family life, leisure, and work, combining humor, delicacy, and tension. For the artist, painting also carries a dimension of permanence: “I feel that painting has this ability to eternalize. It’s a way of keeping alive a moment that, in life, would pass very quickly.”

Anita Schwartz presents a body of work that reaffirms the power of figurative painting as a space for memory, affection, and shared experience, from a feminine perspective attentive to the dynamics of care and daily life.

Service
Exhibition Where I wanted to be
From March 5rd to April 18th
Monday to Friday, 10am to 19pm; Saturday, from 12am to 18pm