Líquen teso: texto crítico [critical essay]: Fernanda Morse

The sensible thinks

Fernanda Morse

Symbiotic association between fungi and algae; crust over the bark. Stretched, tense, one-piece, straight; hilltop; hard. Líquen teso [Taut Lichen] speaks of intervention and nature, of the poles and territories through which these works circulate. Camila Leite, Fabiana Preti, Gabriela Melzer, Mariana Rodrigues and Marina Weffort present different worlds in which forms don’t always have names. In the midst of such heterogeneous resources, the search for the abstract is common, in that layer where what is felt, what is thought and what is seen are separated. Among the many paths found there, there are those who surrender to the flow and create organic, open trajectories; and there are those who overstep the mark, tracing the route.

We’re not interested in reiterating the watertight dualism that separates the sensible from the formal. As others have said, we also believe that the sensible thinks. We have therefore organized these works in such a way as to encourage conversation, in a play of correspondences between color, texture, order and rhythm. Suddenly, Weffort’s precision and synthesis speak to Melzer’s opulence and expansion of forms. Preti’s casear and leather call to mind Leite’s profusion of lines and fabrics. Cold colors become warm and Rodrigues’ Sentimentos lunares [Lunar Feelings] fill the room.

These paths have a history, as Elles font l’abstraction, the exhibition curated by Christine Macel and Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska presented at the Centre Pompidou in 2021, points out. Filling in the gaps left by certain art historians in creating their lineages in the field of abstraction, the show claimed the pioneering role of countless women in the development of this language throughout the 20th century. We can thus attest that artists as diverse as Georgina Houghton (1814-1884), Anni Albers (1899-1994), Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), Alma Thomas (1891-1978), Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), Agnes Martin (1912-2004), Saloua Raouda Choucair (1916-2017) and Etel Adnan (1925-2021) are also involved in the genesis of this conversation.

Líquen teso is also the fusion of the titles of two works in the exhibition. Estudo sobre líquens [Study on lichens] (2023), by Mariana Rodrigues, is part of her research into what the artist identifies as “natural abstract paintings” — patterns, spots and colors that overlap in nature and which she observes and catalogues during periods of immersion in the forest. Teso [Taut] (2023) is the title of the work in Fabiana Preti’s Casear series, in which the artist opens buttonholes in the leather, letting colored slits spread out on the surface like notes in a score.

Weffort also investigates the slits. She draws with fabric in a process of reverse weaving, in which a certain shape is achieved by undoing the weave. Like a reverse trompe-l’œil, the artist explores two-dimensionality in a material endowed with volume, placing a work that borders on the sculptural in the conventional place of drawing and painting. Camila Leite, on the other hand, intervenes in the fabric through embroidery, a practice in which different temporalities overlap, whether through the use of scraps from her grandmothers’ trousseau or the time required by the act of sewing itself. As if they were made up of fragments and reminiscences of the landscape, this experience of the shuffling of the temporal structure is also evoked by the dreamlike atmosphere of Melzer’s paintings.

To give contour to the dream, to embroider time, to unravel the weave. To overflow color, invent form, invoke touch. To let go of the hand, to choose by hand. These are some of the principles that govern the conception of the works in Líquen teso, the group show that opens Galatea’s 2024 exhibition calendar in São Paulo.

Translated by: Julia de Souza