(this page was last updated in July 2018)
Brasilia, Brazil, 1985.
Lives and works in Brasilia, Brazil, Brazil.
Represented by Artur Fidalgo Galeria and Zipper Galeria.
PIPA Popular Vote Exhibition 2013 Winner.
Camila Soato was born on August 15th, 1985 in Brasilia. She is a Leo with ascendant in Aquarius, and she continues to live and work in her hometown. Soato is a Master’s degree student in the Poetics in Contemporary Visual Arts Programme at the University of Brasilia. Her poetic research concentrates on paintings that chooses carelessness as a power, moving away from the aseptic and technical virtuosity, and embracing the crummy, the rough and the poorly finished.
Video produced by Matrioska Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2013:
In her work, the Soato combines the tradition of figurative oil painting, wrapped in a usual seriousness, with themes related to the satirical humor that comes from bizarre situations. Her works are clippings from fragmented images that narrate bizarre moments. She thus questions the possibilities of producing figurative paintings and inserting them in the field of contemporary artistic production. These images, permeated with strong narratives, associate situations–where something occurs almost accidentally–with the quality of paint applied with brush strokes. The brush strokes are incarnated, fleeting, and serve as indices that reveal the process of the work: smudges and stains. Carelessness is assumed as a poetic element. “Fuleragem Polissistêmica nº 5” “Fuleragem Polissistêmica nº 5”, the first solo exhibition in São Paulo by Brasilia artist Camila Soato, and which closes the 2013 season of the Zip’Up project, could be seen as a large, pictorial installation, in which drawing and the three-dimensional also find space, and which resembles a somewhat amateur vision of cinematographic art. The versatile space of the room for new artists has been occupied by small narratives, some in close proximity, others a certain distance apart and regarded in isolation, but that relate to the pleasure and fascination of the earliest experiments with moving pictures. Thus, the pictures/stills are like snapshots that verge on the badly done, the eschatological, the vulgar and that, together, create new meanings. While the prosaic serves as a poetic vector, the specificities of the field of painting are not intimidated. Small, streaky zones of color where the material is imposed, a game of voids and incompletions with denser areas and a beige background in all the works help form the unique style of this artwork. The relaxed atmosphere and unusual figures that dominate the artist’s compositions might give the false impression that the intuitive and the superficial are involved in her daily tasks. Nothing could be more false. Soato has a somewhat monastic studio discipline, producing daily not only bent over the easels with brush in hand, but seeking a repertoire of diverse image references, via the internet or other kinds of record (nothing too refined, however), and reading several different sources, from philosophy to literature. Taking a closer look, one can detect that spark of lack of control, as if Soato’s visual propositions united pulp stories, scenes from the Roman outskirts of Pasolini’s films, Foucault’s writings and discarded photographs from family albums, sepia images portraying children displaying a certain lack of appreciation and affection toward different friends, like soft toys and mongrel dogs. The more horizontal arrangement also serves to amplify the melancholy of the scenes created by the artist. Of particular strength in this regard is the graphite sketching commonly found in the compositions, generating new dialogues with the matter, light and colors of the painting. Without forcing the issue at all, Soato seems to bring a set of solitude and fantasy as a routine escape, against the backdrop of central Brazilian landscapes free of verticality. One can almost feel the really dry air, the lack of visual references from big cities, the beaten land, by old cars and motorbikes raising dust along the highway. Unique towns, as if Le Corbusier’s architectural modernism, in its tropical version, were disintegrated and made to look more like conurbations inhabited by outcast characters from books, from a Cormac McCarthy, for example. In this set, the diptychs displayed by the artist are significant, especially that which portrays a little girl hugging an alligator, in a piece of greater scale than the rest. What is the little girl staring at? This uncomfortable response, as if showing that there is always something lurking, an imminent danger, but that seems to be just wandering through the scenarios, provokes this restlessness that disturbs and remains in the viewer’s retina and thoughts after visiting”Fuleragem Polissistêmica nº 5″. Solo Exhibitions Group Exhibitions Prizes & Grants
The artist’s career in contemporary art began around 8 or 9 years old, when she went to a flea market and traded her bike for a horse nag. From this day forward, she has been working with the notion of fuleragem (bizarreness), a concept coined by the Grupo de Pesquisa Corpos Informáticos (Computer Bodies Research Group), of which she belongs, contaminates and has been contaminated by since 2009.
by Mario Gioia
[Text for the “Fuleragem Polissistêmica nº 5” exhibition, 2013, São Paulo, Brazil]
Education
2017
– Ph.D. in Poetics in Contemporary Visual Arts at PPG-AV, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
2013
– Masters degree in Visual Arts, UnB – Universidade de Brasília, Brazil
2010
– Bachelor in Fine Arts, UnB – Universidade de Brasília, Brazil
2017
– “Caviar é uma Ova!“, Zipper Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Desculpa Virilha Suada“, Galeria Alfinete, Brasília, Brazil
2016
– “Anti-Higiênicas“, Sesc Santana, São Paulo, Brazil
2015
– “Uma diva, uma louca, uma macumbeira, meu deus ela é demais!“, Artur Fidalgo Galeria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2014
– “Nobres sem Aristocracia: Projeto Vira-Latas Puros nº 51“, Zipper Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil
2013
– “Fuleragem Polissistêmica Nº 05“, Zipper Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Vira-Latas Tecnológicos: inserções pictóricas no espaço urbano“, Galeria Espaço Piloto, Brasília,Brazil
2011
– “O Descuido Vira-Latas, Fuleragem e Bundas“, Galeria Espaço Piloto, Brasília, Brazil
– “Situações“, Galeria da América Latina, Brasília, Brazil
– “Situações“, Espaço Cultural UNESC, Criciúma, Brazil
– “Situações“, Galeria Espaço Piloto, Brasília, Brazil
2018
– 11th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
– “Contraponto (Coleção Sérgio Carvalho)“, Museu Nacional da República, Brasília, Brazil
– “Dialetos 2“, Centro Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2017
– “Outros Olhos“, Hill House, Brasília, Brazil
– “Circuito #2“, Alfinete Galeria, Brasília, Brazil
– “Contrafogos“, Museu da Biblioteca Pública de Pelotas, Pelotas, Brazil
– “A luz que vela o corpo é a mesma que revela a tela“, CAIXA Cultural Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Animal-Estar“, Galeria de Arte do Centro de Arte UFF, Niterói, Brazil
2016
– “Ao amor do público“, Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “De|Generadas“, Sesc Santana, São Paulo, Brazil
2014
– “Entre Dois Mundos – Arte Contemporânea Japão-Brasil“, Museu Afro Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil
2013
– “Exposição dos Finalistas do Prêmio Investidores Profissional em Arte (PIPA)“, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Idolatria Vâ“, Galeria Laura Marsiaj, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Mirante“, MUV Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Retrato: Autoretrato“, MUV Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Primeira Vista“, Amarelonegro Arte Contemporânea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Abre Alas“, A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2012
– 64th Salão Paranaense de Arte Contemporânea, Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Paraná MAC/PR, Curitiba, Brazil
– “Espelho Refletido: O Surrealismo e a Arte Contemporânea Brasileira“, Espaço Cultural Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– 31th Salão Arte Pará, Museu Histórico do Estado do Pará, Belém, Brazil
– “Gambiarras“, Galeria Espaço Piloto, Brasília, Brazil
– “Dialetos“, Centro Cultural, Goiânia, Brazil
– “Dialetos“, Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, Brazil
– “Diálogos de Resistência“, Museu Nacional da República, Brasília, Brazil
– 18th Salão UNAMA de Pequenos Formatos, Universidade da Amazônia, Belém, Brazil
2011
– 17th Salão UNAMA de Pequenos Formatos, Universidade da Amazônia, Belém, Brazil
– “Salão/Residência Fora do Eixo“, Espaço Cultural Renato Russo, Brasília, Brazil
– 1st Salão de Arte Contemporânea do Centro Oeste, Centro Cultural Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil
2010
– “Brasília Outros 50“, Galeria Fayga Ostrower, FUNARTE, Brasília, Brazil
– 16th Salão UNAMA de Pequenos Formatos, Universidade da Amazônia, Belém, Brazil
– “Presenças de Cor“, Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, Brazil
2009
– 1st Salão Prêmio Espaço Piloto de Arte Contemporânea, Galeria Espaço Piloto, Brasília, Brazil
– 28th Salão Arte Pará, Belém, Brazil
– Acquisition Prize, 16th Salão UNAMA de Pequenos Formatos, Universidade da Amazônia, Belém, Brazil
– “Melhor Exposição“, Prêmio PIPA Voto Popular, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Salão de Arte Contemporânea do Mato Grosso do Sul Prize, Campo Grande, Brazil
– 64th Salão Paranaense de Arte Contemporânea, Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Paraná MAC-PR, Curitiba, Brazil
– Funarte Estímulo à Produção em Artes Visuais 2012 grant
– “Vira-latas Tecnológicos: inserções pictóricas no espaço urbano” project, Brazil
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