DOHA.- Mendes Wood DM will participate in the inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar with a solo presentation dedicated to Brazilian artist Solange Pessoa.
Renowned for her multidisciplinary approach, Solange Pessoa (b. 1961, Ferros, Brazil) has developed a practice rooted in an intimate and elemental connection to nature, memory, the body, spirituality, and the cycles of life. Her work, which spans sculpture, painting, drawing, video, and installation, takes influence from archaeology, prehistoric cave paintings, traditional craft, Brazilian Baroque, and poetry alike, forging a singular visual language that offers new ways of sensing, reading, and imagining the world.
At Art Basel Qatar, distinct works will be exhibited including paintings from the artist’s Solarengas series. The group comprises monumental paintings, made with natural pigment. Working at an impressive scale, Pessoa brought her full body to these canvases, describing them as charged with Dionysian energy. Lush with fertile, vegetal forms, the paintings evoke processes of regeneration and renewal, echoing Pessoa’s enduring engagement with reproductive cycles and vital, life-sustaining forces. Their earth-like palettes and softened, organic contours invite a sensorial encounter, drawing the viewer into a physical and immersive dialogue with the work.
Beyond the clear references to organic life or prehistoric artistic experimentations, what stands out in Solange Pessoa’s work is a singular, pulsating vitality, which manifests itself in peculiar contours that create figures in which we recognize the primordial movement of genesis. Pessoa’s expansive practice draws inspiration from a plethora of sources: archaeology, prehistoric cave paintings, traditional craft, Brazilian Baroque, and poetry. Her stylization of life assumes a radical depth, offering a particular language for reading and imagining the world. Thus, we see species that carry traits from mineral, botanical, and animal realms and convey universality through their most regional aspects.
