Exhibition "Monsters", by Fernanda Leme

Exposure "Monstros", at Z42 Art, with an overview of the eleven-year career of the artist from Rio de Janeiro Fernanda Leme. Curated by Alexandre Sa, around 80 paintings will be presented, most of them never before seen, produced from 2013 to the present, which discuss painting and photography in contemporary times. Based on her own life, the artist debates, through her works, issues that are common to all, such as the liquid society in which we live, the fleeting nature of images, mourning, loss and longing. “The exhibition is a chronicle of our time, a work of memory and image”, says the artist. On October 26, at 17 pm, she will give a guided tour with curator Alexandre Sá of the exhibition.

The paintings are based on human figures present in old photographs, either taken on a cell phone or extracted from media, but which are augmented by images from her imagination and memory, as well as elements from everyday life. “The works enhance and update the debate between painting and photography in contemporary times from the perspective of the explosion of images, selfies, the fleeting nature of capturing the moment and the eventual fragility of experiencing the moment. Considering the legacy of impermanence, the works problematize the duration of images and their inevitable obsolescence, permeated by the experience of the artist, who also emerges as a sharp chronicler”, states curator Alexandre Sá in the text introducing the exhibition.

Daughter of journalist Lúcia Leme (1938-2021), Fernanda grew up in a family of strong and empowered women and her work reflects this. “I discuss the feminine, the portrait of women, often exposing my own image, emphasizing female protagonism”, says the artist, who makes several self-portraits in contrast to today's selfies.

The name of the exhibition, “Monsters,” was taken from the 2013 painting of the same name, which will be featured in the exhibition. In it, a person appears captured by two hooded men and surrounded by angels and devils. “I research the monsters of our time, such as the weight and grandeur of the History of Art, for example, as well as the weight of mourning and loss,” says the artist. “The title of the exhibition, considerably ironic, asks us to what extent the anguished monstrosity of capturing the present suffocates us and cages us in a fantasy of freedom, even questioning us about the monstrosity of the legacy of painting itself in the History of Art,” highlights the curator.

EXHIBITION ROUTE

Right at the entrance to the exhibition, there will be a large panel with 56 paintings in 30cm x 40cm format, which draw an analogy with the 3x4 photos in which the artist portrays the faces of women she knows and also anonymous women, produced from 2014 to the present day. “It’s a work in progress that never ends, I’m always adding more faces,” she says. The works hark back to the period before the emergence of photography, when artists painted portraits of people so that the image could be immortalized, like a photo, and they provide a counterpoint to the present day. “I discuss the liquid society, the speed with which everything happens. The thousands of selfies that are taken are mostly thrown away, they don’t even get printed. Painting is the opposite, it takes time to be done,” the artist emphasizes.

In the next room, there will be works from the “End of Childhood” series, consisting of five large-scale works, including a 2013 polyptych measuring 149cmX211cm. In this series, the characters are portrayed alongside their favorite superheroes. “These works discuss the loss of ingenuity, creating discomfort between the portrait and the superhero, which is an imaginary thing, a fantasy,” he says.

The exhibition will feature paintings from the “Portraits” series, produced since 2013, in which the artist paints people in various situations, including herself. The works are based on portraits, but with the introduction of new elements created by the artist, in addition to the modification of the original colors. “It is as if these portraits did not remain as the old paintings did, because I make a flat painting and mix it with other elements that were not in the original photograph.” One example is the work “On the Train” (2018), made from a photograph of the artist herself inside a train in 1981. “The construction of very low volume and the occurrence of a certain exoticism of color, evidence a process of tensioning the image that, perhaps, consciously acknowledges its perishability. If the canvas is historically a support of duration and presence, the characters here seem to slip into their memories, as if assuming their short time and their inevitable, not at all tragic, oblivion,” says the curator.

In the next room, there will be works from the “Mourning” series, from 2023, made when the artist discovered she had breast cancer after losing her brother, mother and father to cancer. Faced with the situation, Fernanda Leme decided to look at life in a positive way, portraying herself during treatment. Contrary to what one might think, the works have strong and bright colors, conveying an air of positivity in the face of the situation. “It is a work very much driven by my life story, but it is also the story of thousands of people, but this is still little talked about. I decided to see it as something that happens in life, with lightness. I never stopped producing”, she says. “The works gathered here embroider the experience of the unspeakable based on the artist’s personal experience and memories. It is certainly not a work that misuses psychoanalysis, or a type of work that semantically feeds back on personal traumas, but a vigorous set of works that highlights the quality of the difficult confrontation in the face of the daily individual abyss”, says the curator.

At the end of 2023, the artist created the painting “Pente”, which shows the object on a hot pink background with strands of hair stuck to it. “This was the turning point, the mutation in my life and my work. It is the conclusion of this whole cycle of losses and transformations, with this new phase that is beginning”, she says. From then on, Fernanda Leme began working on her most recent series “Morfemas”, with more geometric works, in which the strands of hair appear as elements of the work, creating designs, as if they were small signs.

Service
Exhibition | Monstros
From October 05th to October 31st
Monday to Friday, from 11am to 16pm. Saturday, by appointment