Sonia Gomes

(this page was last updated in July 2016)

[pipa2016:26131]

Caetanópolis, Brazil, 1948.
Lives and works in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Represented by Mendes Wood DM.

PIPA 2012 and 2016 nominee.

Sonia Gomes makes sculptures in cloth and wire, eclectic fabric contortions that evokes simultaneously the idea of viscera and the sacred object. She follows the fault lines of affect or memory making and revealing arrangements intuitively. In their sheer candor, her sculptures become impressively expressionistic; seemingly free to do what they like. Skin is important within the body of Gomes’ work. The organ of sensuous contact with the world, it at once defines and limits experience. Cloth is a second skin, and a sense of personal history permeates her fabric sculptures. A believer in the élan vitale, she trusts that every material is magnetized with the latency of life.

Recent group exhibitions: “Histórias/Histories: Contemporary Art From Brazil”, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Florida, USA, 2016; No Man’s Land: Women Artists From The Rubell Family Collection”, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, EUA, 2015; “All the World’s Futures”, 56 Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, Italy, 2014; “19th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Video Brasil: Southern Panoramas”, Associação Cultural Video Brasil, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2014; “The Poetry in Between: South to South”, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, 2014.

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