Concepção (Conception)

The year’s first exhibit at Galeria Nara Roesler in Rio de Janeiro is also the debut of one of its represented artists at the Ipanema venue. In Concepção (Conception), Karin Lambrecht presents around 15 pieces created in 2015, including drawings and paintings. The exhibition will run from February 25 (Thursday) to April 9.

Karin Lambrecht, a household name from Brazil’s 80s Generation, built her trademark style using vivid colors on raw canvas, with pigments she developed herself, as well as drawings, sculptures and art creation procedures that incorporate ritualistic elements and aspects, as in the pieces made with blood from slaughtered lambs.

In Concepção, the artist developed a dreamlike context to create a series of large drawings and paintings: “I dreamed my studio was part of a quasi-labyrinthine building, and that in order to get to my work space, one had to climb up numerous STAIRCASES incrusted on the wall. In the BUILDING, one would at times notice a TINT of intense color and at others a remarkable absence of COLOR. The space, architecturally speaking, in my dream, was entirely cut out in CURVED LINES and other PARALLEL ones.”

This inspiring narrative accounts for the premises used in the artwork series featured in the show. The paintings follow up with the artist’s vibrant chromatic research, contrasting with the whiteness of the drawings, made on paper and felt, using sewing and the ethereal deposition of the watercolor and of small details upon a gold sheet, in addition to the occasional presence of blood – this time extracted in minimal amounts from small needle and pin wounds the artist suffered while patching up the artworks.

Thus, the artist once again evokes her inspiring dream: “The climb was inordinately steep and the HANDS AND WRISTS WOULD GET SCRATCHED, they would bleed, one had to hold tight to the handrails on the sides, which were built from a coarse material. Because of that, the bleeding would stain THE CUFFS OF THE WHITE SHIRTS (...).”

Karin Lambrecht strives to fixate the presence of the immaterial, contained in the ritualistic way she employs organic elements – in pigments, blood, the watercolor, the sewing line and the gold. To that end, she employs her image lexicon, which finds in pigments the manifestation of the earthly, of the material, even as it reaches for a spiritual meaning in the drawings created through the disruption of the silent whiteness by delicate symbols that express a language born not from Man, but from God, total body-spirit connection. In the artist’s words, “In this CONSTELLATION, impregnated with a type of impression of imagery in a nocturnal stroll, I longed for the Father, for this EXPRESSIVE love in life, and serene in its timelessness.”

About the artist

Karin Lambrecht was born in 1957 in Porto Alegre, where she lives and works. She was featured in the 18th, 19th and 25th editions of the São Paulo Art Biennial (1985, 1987 and 2002) and in the 5th Mercosur Biennial, in Porto Alegre (2005), all of them in Brazil. In 2015, the Instituto Ling in Porto Alegre featured her solo show pinturas & desenhos. In the past few years, she has been featured in group shows including: As tramas do tempo na arte contemporânea: estética ou poética? (The threads of time in contemporary art: aesthetics or poetics?, Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, 2013); O colecionador de sonhos (The dream collector, Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, 2011); Lugares desdobrados (Unfolded places, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2008); Art in Brazil 1981-2006 (Arte no Brasil 1981-2006, Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil, 2007); and Manobras radicais (lit. Radical maneuvers, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil, 2006). Solo shows include: Eclipse (Pinacoteca da Feevale, Novo Hamburgo, Brazil, 2013); Cores, palavras e cruzes (Colors, words and crosses, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil, 2012); Rio Grande do Sul Art Museum (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2002); and Projeto Eventos Especiais (Special Events Project, Funarte, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1996). In 2013, she launched her book, Karin Lambrecht, edited by Cosac Naify, São Paulo. Her work is represented in major public collections including the São Paulo State Art Gallery - Pinacoteca in São Paulo, Brazil; and Itaú Cultural, also in São Paulo, Brazil, among others.