CAROLINA CORDEIRO

Cordeiro started her artistic practice with drawing and subsequently began to explore other mediums. In her very first solo exhibition, Almost is a Place That Exists (2006), she combined drawing, photography, and objects. Since then, her body of work has become increasingly diverse in terms of medium and has shown a growing interest in evolving based on the influence and resources provided by the environment in which it takes place. Cordeiro is intrigued by immersive processes and advocates for a relationship of mutual influence with the landscape. Consequently, she doesn’t simply aim to propose interventions in space but to demonstrate how the elements comprising it affect her and unfold in her work.

A Night 550km Away from Here (2010-2017), an installation using felt and cockleburs, exemplifies this principle. Its title refers to the distance between Ateliê Fidalga, one of the places where it has been exhibited, and a municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, where the artist collected the seeds of Xanthium cavanillesii, commonly known as cockleburs. With these seeds, which have the ability to disperse by attaching themselves to animal fur, she created a starry sky by affixing them to dark blue felt. The title of the work simultaneously marks the distance and connection it establishes between two spaces, varying depending on where it is installed, always with reference to its origin (the city in Minas Gerais).

Titles, by the way, are of great importance in Carolina Cordeiro’s work. Her interest in poetry and Brazilian popular music would account for this. América do Sal (2021) and As impurezas do branco (2019), for example, make reference to two renowned Brazilian poets, respectively, Oswald de Andrade and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. The relationship with Brazilian popular music influences even the choice of materials, as occurs with zinc in the works Untitled (2019), which consists of zinc plates cut like playing cards with which castles are made, and Dizem que há um silêncio todo negro (2019), an installation made with a perforated zinc plate that plays with both the passage of light and the imagery of violence.

The cohesive aspect of Cordeiro’s research shows itself in the interpenetration of the themes and materials explored in her works, and in how one project does not imply the abandonment of the other, but extends into the other. Between the work made with the baking sheets (Untitled), from 2009, which is still being assembled, and Paisagem, from 2019, one can establish several connections, such as economy of language, geometric interest, and a large symbolic background — such as domestic life or the red soil of her hometown.

In 2021, Carolina Cordeiro founded, along with artists Bruno Baptistelli, Frederico Filippi, and Maíra Dietrich, the gallery Galeria de Artistas, a project created by and for artists as a means to explore new ways of participating in the art market. In 2020, she was nominated for the PIPA award. The artist has attended several national and international artist residencies, among them: CASCO: Art and Community Integration Program, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2020; Pivô Arte e Pesquisa, São Paulo, Brazil, 2019; Red Bull Station, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016; Homesession, Barcelona, Spain, 2011; GlogauAIR Art Residency Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2009.

Among her notable exhibitions are: Adiar a ordem (Group, Galatea, São Paulo, 2025); Carolina Cordeiro: O tempo é (Solo, Galatea, São Paulo, 2023); América do Sal (Solo, Galeria de Artistas – GDA, São Paulo, 2021); Una Nit a 8360 km d’Aquí (Solo, Àngels Barcelona, 2018); Casa no Céu (para Rochelle) (Group, Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, 2023); Semana Sim, Semana Não (Group, Casa Zalszupin, São Paulo, 2022); Lenta Explosión de una Semilla (Group, OTR. Espacio de Arte, Madrid, 2020); I Remember Earth (Group, Le Magasin des Horizons, Grenoble, 2019); and Estratégias do Feminino (Group, Farol Santander, Porto Alegre, 2019).