Over the past two years, many of us have not only dreamed of our next vacation, but have also turned to larger and extraordinary areas such as memory, emotions, spirituality, and imaginative landscapes. We have scouted the place for the most important things, for the sake of clarity, for the metaphysical understanding.
Brazilian artist Marina Perez Simão outlines these landscapes in her paintings, gliding between figures and abstractions, showing colors and shapes that we can understand, and mapping areas that we do not understand. Let’s get started.
Her luscious streams and pigment swipes can come together to create faintly recognizable details, or ocean waves. The bright red sun — a velvety plunge divides the path of the eye. It’s like a curtain edging a painting of a Baroque church in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Marina Perez Siman, Untitled, 2021. © Marina Perez Simão Courtesy of artists, Mendes Wood DM, and Pace Gallery.
Simon draws several works at the same time. “They don’t look very similar, but they share the same internal logic,” said the artist from his home in São Paulo. “I often [include] Multiple horizon.Break the composition [for] State change in a sense — a promise of something beyond painting. “
Diana Campbell, who curated Siman’s recent exhibition, the Observatory, at the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing, said: , China.
The museum designed by Steven Holl mainly consists of diagonal walls, and the show is a kind of constellation that draws visitors into three dimensions. “We treated the building like an observatory, where the painting was like a window to another world,” Campbell said.
Marina Perez Siman, Untitled, 2021. © Marina Perez Simão Courtesy of artists, Mendes Wood DM, and Pace Gallery.
Born in Vitoria, Brazil in 1980, Simão grew up between Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. The relentless invasion of natural cities into the cityscape left a strong impression on emerging artists. Originally she attended law school and she took painting and ceramics classes by her side. After that, her art took over.
Simão enrolled in Beaux-Arts de Paris, studied under the Brazilian sculptor Solange Pessoa, and stayed in Paris for seven years. There she met her fellow student Pedro Mendes before starting the São Paulo-based Mendeswood DM. Simão was the first artist in the gallery when it opened in 2010 (since it is based in Brussels and New York and has grown internationally).
Last spring she made her solo debut at the Pace Gallery in New York with “Tudoé enãoé” (Portuguese for “everything, not”). The exhibition is named after the lines of an experimental 1956 novel by Brazilian writer João Guimaran Esloza. Grande Sertan: Beredas ((((Devil paying in the hinterland), Explore the human mind via Minas Gerais.
Marina Perez Siman, Untitled, 2021. © Marina Perez Simão Courtesy of artists, Mendes Wood DM, and Pace Gallery.
Simon painted part 23 Untitled Quarantine in São Paulo takes almost a year. They document what they want, rather than looking directly at some of her most resilient settings. The raging sky of the rainy season in Rio. The lush hills of Minas Gerais before and after the thick morning fog.
“Her imagination appears in her paintings, and her paintings appear in her imagination. It’s very evasive and mysterious,” Mendes said.
As Simon wrote in a memo of her painting, “I need to surprise myself. I need to have a sense of ignorance: what is this, where is this?”
Each element of her work is at least the opposite of being. The light source is either the sun or the moon. The foreground can be the background just as easily. Liquids may also be solids.
Marina Perez Siman, Untitled, 2021. © Marina Perez Simão Courtesy of artists, Mendes Wood DM, and Pace Gallery.
She started each painting as a sketchbook study, turning it into a watercolor and moving her hand to the edge of the canvas with long confidence. “I really don’t like to hesitate to draw,” the artist said. “I like direct gestures. To do that, I need to prepare.”
“She has been working on the same painting for 15 years since she started studying,” said Mateus Yehudi, Associate Director of Mendeswood DM. “You can see it by looking at it. [in] Her old work, her writing, her studies; visiting her studio is to have a master class in arts, physics and astronomy. “
“The work was developed in her practice, especially in her mind. I define her mind as a kaleidoscope, and she only has all the information she needs now. [to make these paintings].. “
Marina Perez Siman, Untitled, 2021. © Marina Perez Simão Courtesy of artists, Mendes Wood DM, and Pace Gallery.
Beyond her loyal collector’s base in Brazil, they can be found in museum collections around the world, from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAMC) in Saint-Etienne, France to the Samdani Museum in Dhaka, Bangladesh. , Shanghai, Chongqing, Long Museum of Art in Pudong, Dallas Museum of Art.
Meanwhile, due to the universal blockade, Siman’s colorful and spiritual views seem to have surged in popularity lately. She has appeared in three pace gallery shows in Geneva, New York City, and East Hampton over the past 18 months.
“Marina’s work is immediately fascinating given her mastery of color and shape,” said Samant Rubel, vice president of Pace Gallery. “The use of her light in combination with her unique playfulness transcends both her realized and imagined landscapes.”
Marina Perez Siman, Untitled, 2021. © Marina Perez Simão Courtesy of artists, Mendes Wood DM, and Pace Gallery.
“Her approach to the historically rich landscape genre in Brazil can be matched with the art of Tarsila do Amaral, Jose Pansetti, Roberto Burle Marx and Tomie Ohtake. Marina’s research into memory and interaction with literature breathes new conceptual dimensions into her work that make her vision unique. “
The artist, whose work currently ranges from $ 30,000 to $ 100,000, is planning another major presentation this fall at the new paced London outpost. It will take place at the same time as the publication of the monographs from Circle Books and Rizzoli. As Yehudi said, “She is not a moment.”
But at this moment, the audience navigates an increasingly chaotic world, but Siman’s paintings resonate at a much deeper level. As Mendes said, “The work allows you to travel to a state of temporary consciousness where you can get out of yourself and enter the beauty of her fictional world.” Perhaps that’s what everyone needs.
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