“Cartography of the Feminine”
 

The idea and choices for this show follow the premise and wider context in many areas of the cycle “Portuguese women in US”, by Arte Institute, presenting artwork by Portuguese female artists residing and working in New York. 
 

“Cartography” is a metaphor and the inspiration for this exhibition. The intention is to create multiple dialogues among the artworks bringing up issues of feminine identity, claiming consistency between form and content. 
 

Their vocabulary expands from digital photography, as an end in itself or as a conceptual process, to painting. 
 

Margarida Correia, “Dona Geraldina e Maria” and “Dona Ana”, from the series “Ofício São Roque”, shows portraits of women while creating contrast and ambiguity with their personal backgrounds, often between secularism and sacredness, or tradition versus domesticity. 
 

Joana Ricou, “Other self-portrait” and “Non-self-portrait”, from the series “Other selves”, a process starts with sampling microorganisms from the skin of her face, giving another - “Other self” conceptualized dimension together with organic, pictoric abstractions.
 

Isabel Pavão presents paintings  “Love Full” and "Fear Less”, from the series “Psyche Boundaries”, reflecting abstract self-portraits while exploring an emotional/self referential dimension in dialectic with a painterly background.
 

Maria Clara Pereira, “Anagram #1” and “Anagram #9”, from the series “Anagram”, explores images of her body with the inclusion of foreign objects, creating another sense of physicality coupled with an imaginary dimension, through virtual metamorphosis.
 

Rita Barros, in “Untitled #4” and “Chelsea Housewife”, from the series “Displacement2”, portrays images of her body in a setting where movement and grace contrasts with her autobiographical background.  This particular work reverts to the notions of self, placing her body at the center of her approach, posing it.
 

Although the particular aesthetic solutions vary from one artist to another, they all share the same logic where histories of subjectivity meet the narratives of a culture(s) and cultural hybridity.  As a result, we witness new forms, functioning at a number of levels of self portraying and imagining, embracing the existential dilemma of being and appearing, confronting the concept of beauty in itself.

 

Isabel Pavão, New York, October 2013

 

Rita Barros
Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, photographer Rita Barros teaches at NYU (New York University). She has a MA in Art in Media: Studio Art from New York University/ International Center of Photography and is the author of the book “Fifteen Years: Chelsea Hotel” Camara Municipal de Lisboa, 1999.

Her work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions at :

PS 1 Contemporary Arts Center, Briggs & Robinson Gallery, Exit Art, (all in NYC); Center for Photography at Woodstock, (NY), Wilfredo Lam Contemporary Art Museum (Havana, Cuba);  Encontros De Coimbra, Museu da Água, Cadeia da Relação/Centro Português de Fotografia, Museu de Serralves, Bieanl de Cascais (all in Portugal), São Paulo Contemporary Art Museum (Sao Paolo, Brazil), Photo España 07 (Emerging Talents) at the Museo de Arte Contemporanea (Madrid, Spain), Biennale de Soncino, Flash Art Fair (Milan, Italy), at Paris Photo 2009 and 2010, with Galeria Pente 10, and at Fundação Gulbenkian, (Paris).

Her portraits and cityscapes have been published in many European and American magazines, including New York Times, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Nouvel Observateur, Elle, Vogue, Zoom, Expresso, GEO, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, Publico, Marie Claire, Le Monde.

She was awarded with a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2002 and is represented in various Portuguese and international art collections.
 

Untitled #4, 2012

Paper size 11x 8 1/2”(27,94x21,59cm)

Archival Pigment Print

From the series “Displacement2”

 

Chelsea Housewife, 2012

Paper size 11x 8 1/2”(27,94x21,59cm)

Archival Pigment Print

From the series “Displacement2”


Margarida Correia