Until April 11, 2023

Galeria Karla Osorio presents the exhibition ”Ni Ukemerã – Floresta Dentro” by artist Simone Fontana Reis, whose opening took place on March 14, in Brasília. The exhibition brings together almost 40 works by the artist, in techniques such as painting, drawing, objects and sculptures, produced between 2017 and 2022. It is the artist’s first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery.

about the exhibition
As stated in the curatorial text by Mariana Leme, made especially for this exhibition, the artist ”invites us to bring the forest inside, in a movement of affection and affection from which no one emerges unscathed. From his own experience transformed into paintings, drawings and sculptures, the forest is transformed. Forest that, to the ignorance of the “clothed people”, raku nawá, seemed an exotic or mysterious world, becomes incorporated — made body — as a source of creation and pulsating life. […]
In “Cosmic Tunnel and Ni Ukemerã”, the painting that names the exhibition, that kind of soft vine that was next to the big tree swallowed the planet, like a mythical serpent. Transformative. He swallowed Tarsila do Amaral and tied a knot in Urutu’s egg, a painting by the modernist artist that is directly related to the Anthropophagous Manifesto, released that same year, 1928, and inspired by the ancient Tupinambá ritual. Reis’ boa constrictor also swallowed the famous Abaporu — including the sun — and, who knows, the good intentions of Paulistas a century ago, who intended to make sense of “Brazil” by taking advantage of cultures that seemed picturesque to them. […]
Unlike Tarsila do Amaral and other artists who were “enchanted” by Amazonian myths and legends, without knowing the exact meaning of “enchantment”, Reis knows the territory, which she has been visiting and experiencing for decades. In the words of journalist Eliane Brum, “When a napë enters the Amazon, in the deepest sense, you have to know that it will never again fit in your own body, but neither will it be able to fully assume another.” Simone-raku nawá-napë no longer fits in her own body; it was transformed by the forest, swallowed by the boa constrictor that inhabits her work. […]”

To better contextualize the production of Fontana Reis, we highlight a brief curatorial excerpt by Icaro Ferraz Vidal Junior about his work. According to him, “the gesture with which the artist creates her images and sculptures mirrors other gestures performed by her, such as turning over the earth and planting in her exuberant garden. This observation, initially intuitive, was transformed into an access route to Simone’s way of being in the world, learned in the forest and alien to the separation and hierarchization between nature and culture”….
The artist’s interaction and collaboration with the Huni Kuin people reverberate in her production beyond a more superficial level, which we are able to recognize in the beings of the forest that populate her works. More profoundly, the way Fontana Reis manipulates the materials and signs with which she builds her universe can be thought of analogously to the shamanic transit between worlds. These worlds are the forest and the city […]”

About the artist
Simone Fontana Reis (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
She lives and works in São Paulo. In 1995, she began her activities in the arts, tutored by Leda Catunda and Sergio Romagnolo. Bachelor and Master from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (2002 and 2014). She participated in several exhibitions in São Paulo, New York and Sweden, where she lived for 8 years. Among her exhibitions, the following stand out: Foreign Bodies, 2001, collaboration with scientists from the London School of Tropical Medicine, where she received the first prize of the exhibition. The Seeds Dance, 2004 – British Cultural Festival at the British Cultural Center, São Paulo, where he also received the first prize. HOT ONE HUNDRED, 2013 at Schwartz Gallery, London. New Sensation, 2014, at Saatchi Art, London. All that glitters is not gold, 2017, at Paiol da Cultura, Manaus. Pele D’Água, 2017, at Qualcasa Gallery, São Paulo. She participated in the salons Paranaense, Ribeirão Preto, Vinhedo, Londrina and twice in the Salão de Santo André. She also participated in the group exhibition Novos Viajantes, 2018, at MUBE, Museum of Brazilian Sculpture and Ecology, São Paulo. He also received the first prize at the 25th Salon of Plastic Arts in Praia Grande/SP. Her works explore boundaries between painting, sculpture, installation and video.
Her research retrieves elements from Amerindian history, focusing on the feminine, and emphasizes the way in which these cultures maintained relationships with nature. Over two decades she researched orchids and forests. Based on this investigation, she visited the Kadiweu village in Central Brazil three times, where she confronted the theory and practice of body painting with graphics practiced exclusively by women. He recently inaugurated the Maloca-Escola e Floresta Project together with the Huni Kuins Indians in Acre, whose project sawto improve the living conditions of this population, its cultural strengthening, forest protection and reforestation. At the moment, he is carrying out research that relates his production, the intelligence of the forest and the mystery of Ayahuasca, sacred to indigenous peoples.

About Galeria Karla Osorio
Created in 2016, the Karla Osorio gallery acts to insert contemporary artists in the market and institutional scene. It favors the most innovative production in art, with a program of temporary exhibitions that encourage various languages and techniques. It represents Brazilian and foreign artists. Participates in art fairs in several countries, being the only gallery in Brasilia in some of the best fairs in the world in cities such as Basel, Chicago, Mexico, Miami, New Delhi, New York, Punta (Uruguay), as well as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, among others. It supports research and innovative projects, has a program of courses, lectures, partnerships with other spaces and institutions, in addition to interventions in the public space. It develops projects with visiting curators and offers an artistic residency with an atelier, in a privileged space. It also operates in the secondary market. In addition to the headquarters in Brasilia, with ample exhibition space in Lago Sul, with pavilions and an outdoor area with gardens, it also has an office in São Paulo.

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Service:
Exhibition ‘’Ni Ukemerã – Floresta Dentro’’ by Simone Fontana Reis
Duration: From March 14 to April 11, 2023.
Monday to Friday, 9am to 6.30pm | Saturday 9 am to 2 pm,
always by prior appointment by phone, DM on Instagram or WhatsApp.

Karla Osorio Gallery
Address: SMDB Conjunto 31 Lote 1B – Lago Sul Brasília – DF CEP 71.680-310 Brazil
Phone: +55 61. 3367 6303 and 6353 #20 / +5561981142100 (WhatsApp)
Email: karla.osorio02@gmail.com www.karlaosorio.com
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