ANNA LIVIA TABORDA MONAHAN

The title membrane suggests a cross-cutting aspect to the works on display: perspectives constructed from layers of fabric, broken surfaces–such as earth crusts and eggshells–that reveal the depth of structures that are both delicate and resistant. These elements are viewed with an almost scientific gaze, dissecting animals into layers of fabric and investigating the mysteries of what lies beneath the initial impression. “When I am drawing these animals, I think about how they exist in a logic that is totally alien to ours, to our moral logic. It is almost impossible to represent them without my gaze, and at the same time I try tobe aware of this, bringing out the brutality and lightness of these natural life cycles,” says the artist.

Anna Livia’s relationship with the animal world dates back to her childhood, when she came into contact with the Atlantic Forest and biology books.The artist grew up in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, and was strongly encouraged by her family, especially by her mother’s artistic eye. From an early age, she developed an obsession with animals, spending hours observing them in nature or in scientific illustration books, attentive to the details and structures that compose them. Currently, the artist continues to transpose into drawing and painting what arouses her curiosity, now through a more poetic gaze, one of strangeness and fascination, incorporating surrealist layers derived from actual dreams and her own sensations.

Her universe manifests itself in the large-scale painting Dois peixes Two Fish, which reveals aspects of aggression and conflict present in the animal world, symbolically expanding to reference the concept of Yin and Yang. The fish of the air, with a black back, and the fish of the sea, with a white abdomen, meet and represent the harmony that exists in their multiple forms. Blood and bubbles spread under the water, while internal and external conflict manifests itself in exposed flesh–where wounds open and the spine is revealed.

In _Geração de Luz _Generation of Light, a butterfly, located in an internal space and attracted by electric light, emerges from its cocoon. Stimulated by the artificial, the lamp becomes the only possibility of reaching the sun. Wires generate the lighting, while the tips of the insect’s antennae almost touch the luminous object. In this composition, the cocoon, butterfly, and environment are presented explicitly, as is the tile that seems to reflect the light emanating from birth itself. The painting addresses themes such as energy, life, and transformation, explored through layers of paint and the combination of silver and gold to create luminosity.

Explosive and delicate in equal measure, certain beings face brutality in their lifecycles–as evident in Cigarra (2025). In this work, the insect emerges from its exoskeleton, abandoning its previous form. A beam of sunlight highlights the translucent wings and the transparency of the structure that once sheltered it. The sharp contrast between light and shadow, constructed from black and white, lends drama to the scene.

The exhibition also brings together a series of eight small-scale gouaches, conceived as more introspective studies of elements that later appear in the oil paintings. In these works, Anna Livia explores more geometric structures, organizing objects inempty, spacious, and closed environments. Viewed together, the works provoke a sense of closeness and distance between the elements, generating perceptions that oscillate between confinement and release

In membrana, Anna Livia Taborda Monahan combines painting and drawing to investigate the boundaries between nature and imagination, revealing life cycles marked by tension, transformation, and delicacy. By combining scientific observation, memory, and storytelling, the artist constructs images that operate between the rigor of form and the instability of the sensitive, consolidating pictorial research that dialogues with contemporary questions about matter, existence, and perception.

Courtesy Mendes Wood DM.