Regina Silveira: Grafias e Bordados / Duelo

The exhibition Grafias e Bordados [Spellings and Embroidery] presents recent graphical pieces created by Regina Silveira  (b. 1939, Porto Alegre, Brazil) in several media, from traditional engraving to digital techniques used for printing and cutting. The numerous groups of works that compose the show point to important aspects of the artist’s poetics, such as her usage of shadows and her ability to transform and give new meanings to quotidian images. In her most recent works, we also see the embroidery in cross stich, a graphical tool she has been using to codify several kinds of images. With this element, the artist produced extensive works to coat large architectures, such as the MASP (São Paulo) and the indoor porch of the Museu Amparo (Puebla, Mexico) – these ephemeral installations are presented in the show with mock-ups or video documentation.

The cross stich embroidery is also the central element in “Blue Skies”, a lithograph created for the Museum’s project “Os Amigos da Gravura” [Friends of Engraving] and released during the opening of the show.

The second floor of the museum is occupied with one of Silveira’s most impressive graphical works, Duelo [Duel]. By extracting matter from 46 acrylic plates juxtaposed on top of a base, the artist constructs a narrative based on the absence an the object – a gun. With the aid of powerful spotlights, a dramatic tension is created between two non-objects, a duel of two guns formed by empty space.