SONIA GOMES

These amalgams carry vestiges of previous existences and each part is added to the whole in a double process. In other words, their physical nature and their historical weight. Expressionist-like organic forms emerge from the decomposition of affective objects, which invariably lead to the vision of a pulsating life, made from the combination of different experiences and memories.

Gomes designs multiple and meticulous contortions with fabric - strictly using handcraft techniques. Each seam or fold comes from vernacular procedures aimed at transcending the notion of the popular, combining the naive (as a result of an informal and self-taught background) and the erudite (in line with a rigorous gaze and gesture); the traditional and the inventive; the readymade and the authorial, in order to forge an affective, aesthetic and political redistribution of art’s complexities, raw materials and outcomes. Within the entanglement of memories and intuitive materialisations, biographies find escape routes in a tactile and organic way, experimenting with new and vibrant ways of existing.

Sonia Gomes (Caetanópolis, 1948) lives and works in São Paulo.

In 2018 the artist will had her first major monographic institutional exhibitions in Brazil, at MASP - Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo and at MAC - Museu de Arte Contemporânea of Rio de Janeiro.

In addition, her work has been included in institutional group exhibitions such as the 56ª Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2015); Entangled, Turner Contemporary, Margate, United Kingdom (2017); Revival, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA (2017); Art & Textiles – Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2013); Out of Fashion. Textile in International Contemporary Art, Kunsten – Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark (2013).

Courtesy Mendes Wood DM