ART CITIES: São Paulo-Sonia Gomes

Sonia Gomes’ production develops from materials such as fabrics, lines, threads and objects. Along with the layers of fabrics and trimmings, techniques – weaving, embroidery, lace, sewing – and memories merge: dresses, curtains, towels and various fabrics that people, known or not, send to her studio and transform into abstract bodies. by the artist’s hands.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Pinacoteca de São Paulo Archive

Sonia Gomes has a production that develops from the weave and fabric accumulations, using materials such as fabrics, threads, threads and objects. The artist became known for her sculptures and installations that explore questions of identity, memory and ancestry, in works that resonate with Afro-Brazilian history and culture. The artist has had her works exhibited in several exhibitions around the world, such as the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Biennale. “Symphony of Colors” is an unprecedented installation created for the Octógono Arte Contemporânea Project at Pinacoteca Luz, in which Sonia Gomes faces an unprecedented challenge in her career; to conceive a work on a much larger scale than usual, without sacrificing the handcrafted and chromatic quality of its objects. Sonia Gomes’ production includes 34 strings suspended at different heights, which make up a symphony of shapes and visualities. It is a reflection and a product of the way your own body reacts to fabrics, as it creates objects whose materiality connects to the stories of other people and whose scale corresponds to the reach of their limbs. The work in the exhibition can be appreciated from different points of view, in which the variations and shades of the objects are perceived from the movement through the space. A soundtrack complements the experience, in which guitarist Plínio Fernandes performs Prelude Nº 4 for guitar by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Sonia Gomes began her art career mid-life, developing a practice of sewing and tying together found and gifted objects and textiles exploring notions of memory and identity. Often incorporating wire into her constructions, Gomes produces multi-dimensional sculptural works that hang from the ceiling, reach out from the walls, or rest on the ground. This act of binding remnants of disparate cultures and materials is deeply rooted in Gomes’s own story—she says: “My work is Black, it is feminine, and it is marginal. I am a rebel. I never worried about masking or stifling anything that might or might not fit standards of what is called art. I always sought nonconformity with things that are established. I had to overcome a lot of obstacles because I’m Black, because I was too old to be considered one of Brazilian art’s young talents. … My work is Brazilian”. As fabric is produced by weaving, knitting, or otherwise knotting independent threads together into one unit, or as discrete histories merge to inform one’s holistic identity, so too does Gomes unite the distinct narratives of her materials—ranging from gifted dresses, wedding invitations, pattern books—into one intuitive and singular work.

Photo: Sonia Gomes, Symphony Of Colors, 2023, Installation view Pinacoteca de São Paulo- São Paulo, Courtesy the artist and Pinacoteca de São Paulo

Info: Curator: Jochen Volz, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Praça da Luz, 2, São Paulo, Brazil, Duration: 2/9/2023-14/4/2024, Days & Hours: Mon, Wed &Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu 10:00-20:00, https://pinacoteca.org.br/