Que coso? Carne quebrada!

Collages and still lifes bring together images of the body, gestures of reconstruction and reflections on the fleeting nature of life. The exhibition presents recent work by Silene Fiuza, particularly pieces made since the start of the pandemic.

Curatorial text

Reconstruction is a gesture present in Silene Fiuza’s life and work. She tears up images that depict, with striking verisimilitude, the raw truth of our flayed bodies and reassembles them in new forms, creating narratives about the fleeting nature of life. In medicine, producing a single tomographic image involves bringing together between 800 and 1,500 images to form one: a synthesis of a fragmented body, a nameless body in search of healing. Art allows syntheses to emerge from gestures akin to those performed by computerized technology.

The works selected for this exhibition at Galeria Acaiaca were produced by the artist in recent years, particularly since the beginning of the pandemic, when collage became an inseparable part of her artistic research.

Among this recent work, the series of still lifes made during the pandemic stands out. Once regarded as a minor genre within painting, still life came to prominence as nineteenth-century academic art, followed by modern art, drew on the reality and symbolism of vases, flowers, fruit and tables to address profound themes. With his perfect rendering of the sheen of metal, Pedro Alexandrino, a nineteenth-century Brazilian academic artist, was perhaps one of its most lyrical minds. Giorgio Morandi devoted his life to the genre.