ANA CLÁUDIA ALMEIDA

Approaching painting as the central axis of her practice, Almeida creates abstractions that relate to landscape as well as atmospheric effects expressed in the charged materiality of her surfaces. The artist dislodges the pictorial surface to three-dimensional space, investigating other presentation possibilities for her work. Her research, directed toward the formal reinvention of the physical world, led Almeida to the subject of her show: three Brazilian rivers and their histories, courses and symbolic associations. Namely, the three referred to in the exhibition title: the Guandu, a river that provides the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area with drinking water; the Paraguaçu, on the margins of which lay Cachoeira and São Felix in the interior of the state of Bahia, a crucial waterway during colonial times; and the Piraquara that runs through the Realengo neighbourhood in Western Rio. Each has its place in the local culture and economy and occupies a position in the artist’s imaginary repertoire.

Guandu (2023) is a large-scale oil painting whose discontinuous color fields echo an aerial view of a river basin, with islets, rapids, deltas and estuaries in coarse textures and vigorous brushstrokes. Paraguaçu (2023) is a large tarpaulin fabric painted with oil pastels and resin, hanging from the ceiling and lightly touching the ground, a volume present in the exhibition space. Its surface is divided into two main fields, one bearing a network of thick yellow lines, crossed with markings in blue and pink, the other organised by a repetitive graphic motif akin to the scales of a serpent. The relationship between the river and the serpent evokes a winding movement, the flow of a current. Finally, Piraquara (2023) is a short film shot on Super 8. It presents images of the eponymous river juxtaposed with interviews with locals. Only a few kilometres after its source, the Piraquara is already extremely polluted, and testimonies revolve around perspectives of the future, with interviewees weaving a narrative that interweaves time, human occupation and a collective ecological fate.

As a metaphor, the river harbours meanings that range from the constant transformation and mutation of nature to the passage of time. Almeida recalls sedimentation and erosion, as eminently material processes, and translates them to the realm of painting. Just as the same current can string along different landscapes, distant populations and specific climates, Ana Cláudia’s practice stitches together procedures, media and techniques in a visual language that strives to link the source to the river mouth.