Exhibition "Colors of the Interior", by Renata Egreja

From the physical interior to the symbolic, from the idyllic sunset of western São Paulo and its pink and earthy tones to anti-racist and feminist struggles, from placid to conflict, from terrestrial to celestial. In this universe of pure mixtures, Renata Church celebrates the creative process at the exhibition interior colors, which covers the last 14 years of production. Born in São Paulo, Renata grew up, lives and works in the interior of the State of São Paulo and is internationally recognized, with works spread across Germany, France, India, among other countries. In September, the project, awarded with the 2022 PROAC ICMS, by the Secretary of Culture of the State of São Paulo, will be launched at the FAMA Museum, in Itu, and, in November, will have a presentation at the Museum of Art of Ribeirão Preto (MARP) . Also in November, Renata appears in a solo exhibition at Galeria Lume, in São Paulo.

In a path that goes from the prosaic to the philosophical, the exhibition addresses the interior both from a personal perspective (which is at the artist's core), as well as geographical (the landscape on the margins of large urban centers as inspiration) and historical (the symbolic representation of colors and the feminist struggle for the artist). “It is a very feminine project as a whole and deals with the vision of different concepts of the interior, the interior of oneself or the look within as a strategy for an anti-patriarchal struggle”, points out Renata Egreja, who grew up in rural areas and produces in a studio on a farm in the small town of Ipaussu, in the Midwest region of the State of São Paulo, almost on the border with Paraná. The idyllic production environment contrasts, however, with the metamorphosis of recent years in her personal life: she became a mother, doula and teacher. Gender issues and the fight for women's rights have become constant in her work. In her artistic work, Renata reflects on being a female artist in the face of an Art History mostly played by men. For this reason, she honors names of female artists – from Brazil – such as Beatriz Milhazes, Gabriela Machado, Leda Catunda, Tarsila do Amaral, and from abroad, such as the Ukrainian-French Sonia Delaunay, the English Bridget Riley, the Americans Georgia O'Keeffe and Suzanne Lacy. 

For the exhibition at the FAMA Museum, in the historic center of the city of Itu, Renata separated 18 works, including unpublished works and highlights from the last 14 years of her career, which show her rich and multifaceted trajectory. There are varied supports such as tie-dye, oil and acrylic paintings, with natural and synthetic pigments, such as mica and glitter; watercolors, ceramics and an immersive and interactive installation, which invites young and old to relate in a more sensorial way with the work. The “interior” of the soul, life and countryside is reflected in the works, seeking harmony between opposites, from poetics (love, humanism, motherhood) to politics (gender equity and anti-racist struggle), from the ground floor ( flowers, plants, seeds, wedding cake, domestic environment) to the transcendental (dreams, utopias, daydreams), from the beautiful to the imperfect (still life, stains and apparent pigments on the canvases), from the geometric to the organic, from the technical to the intuitive, from placidity to contemporary conflicts. In common, an amalgam of colors, vivid and striking.

Part of the works were produced in Paris, during the artist's training at the Escola Nacional Superior de Belas Artes (ENSBA) and on her learning journeys through India, Italy, Cambodia and Vietnam, with works from 2009 to the present day. Expanded paintings, of large dimensions and formats, are another highlight of the project. It is the case of V. Painted in 2010, it is a canvas measuring 2,50m by 2m, which unites the sacred and the profane, the religiosity of the interior of the State with a cosmopolitan touch, a saint dressed in carnival clothes and lots of glitter. Textured aspect of the work that can only be seen in the physical observation of the work, live and in color, revealing the uniqueness of the piece. 

The artist's immersive installations are an invitation to reflection and discuss themes dear to society, such as misogyny. The works are always collaborative, to give space and voice to female artists within the art market, which has historically denied female protagonism. It is the case of accommodated (2019), in the MARP collection, a station that seeks a link between the experience of the accommodated body and social reality. Statistical data show how inert we are in the face of situations of gender inequality. “43% of Brazilian men think that the woman is responsible for taking care of the house”, recalls one of the embroidered pillows on a cozy red carpet at the museum. In the exhibition at FAMA, the Wheel of Mothers (2023) follows the same concept. On the pillows, provocative phrases about life, death and belonging: “After I was a mother, I became a feminist”, “I freeze the eggs”, “I don’t want to be a mother”, “I had an abortion”, “I had an orgasmic delivery”, "I didn't have a passage, I didn't go into labor". The phrases were made in collaboration with doula Anna Gallafrio. The embroidery is by Gabriela Michelini; the rugs were woven by Kika Elias.  

From curation to production, it is a project made by women, from a female perspective. Sponsorship is from the company Atena Açúcar e Etanol. The production is by Madrid Produções Culturais and curated by Paula Borghi. Master in Visual Arts from UFRJ, Paula has worked as a curator in different projects, such as the 11th Bienal do Mercosul, the 2nd Bienal de Havana and idealized the award-winning Projeto Múltiplo, an itinerant library of publications by Latin artists. Pink in all its nuances is the predominant color in Renata's work, life and even in her studio, but the use of color, so often associated with the female gender, takes on other meanings in her works. Not every rose is rose or mere adornment. “What you have is an artist who problematizes the performativity of gender through color and claims iconographies circumscribed to the feminine, in order to stretch the limits of this adjective in the pictorial field. The affirmation of the performativity of the female gender through aesthetics is the active way she found to mark her presence in a predominantly patriarchal environment. As who says: There will be a female artist painting still lifes in pink tones, yes!“, comments Paula Borghi, curator of the exhibition interior colors.  

Carnival-oriented, Renata has already worked with the carnival and draws much of her inspiration for her art from this ancestry party. There are, in her works, canvases with glitter and glitter. Visual effects and vibrant colors that refer to the Carnival party, but also to the fight against female oppression. Feast and fight are sisters. Just like painting and its transforming power.

Service
Exhibitions | interior colors
From September 07 to January 31, 2024
Wednesday to Sunday, from 11 am to 17 pm