NEW YORK, NY.- For her second exhibition at Nohra Haime Gallery, Brazilian artist Anna Paola Protasio presents a striking installation, The Fractured Instant, on view from January 7 - February 7, 2015.

After working as an architect for 20 years, Protasio entered the world of fine art. Carrying over skills of precision and exactness, she produces constructive art through varying languages of installation and sculpture. Her work questions modern life in a subtle and delicate way. In The Fractured Instant, she reflects on the relationship between time and space, and the possibilities of its disruption. In this installation, Protasio uses footage of pedaling bikers that disappear into an unknown dimension, their presence only emanated by the empty bikes installed within the gallery that follow the projection. The cyclic aspect of this installation considers the sequence of opportunities that we are given each day as an ongoing process of renewal.

Through The Fractured Instant she continues to explore concepts of the unattainable and eternal by examining the poetic notion of a suspension in time, and to connect the various lapses between time and space. Here that connecting element is the color red, chosen for both the bikes and the rider's clothing to contrast with the grey scale of the remaining elements in the video.

Known for using elegant and polished visual metaphors, Protasio's deliberations on these lapses are also shown through the split bikes fused to the walls and aimed at the screen. They seem to continue on their way toward a dimension that we can perceive, but cannot see. The anxiety that our expectation of a spatiotemporal continuum generates is emphasized and provoked intentionally, awakening our mind and encouraging us to reconsider these expectations. In her own words, Protasio builds "a dimensional portal which connects one distant point to another while retaining the same time."

Protasio has held solo exhibitions in museums and cultural centers throughout Rio de Janeiro, such as House France Brazil (2008), the National Museum of Fine Arts (2010), and the Cultural Center of the Post Office (2010). In São Paulo, she has exhibited at the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture (2012), and the SESC (Social Service of Commerce of São Paulo) in Bauru, São José do Rio Preto, São José dos Campos and Ribeirão Preto (2007-2009). In the U.S., she has exhibited her work at Nohra Haime Gallery with Trawl (2014). Protasio has been the recipient of awards such as Winner of the Contemporary Art Salon of Foreign Ministry (2012) and Third Place at the 27th Annual Arts Hall Embu das Artes for installation, video, photography and performance (2010). This exhibition was shown for the first time at The Post Office Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro (2010) and then at Mube-Brazillian Museum of Sculptures (2012). Born in 1966, Protasio currently lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.