SÃO PAULO.- 'Ao entrar nas profundezas, pense nas alturas' is the title of Leka Mendes' first solo exhibition at Marli Matsumoto Arte Contemporânea, which opens on Saturday June 17th, curated by Ana Roman.

The phrase that gives the exhibition its name is taken from its initial context - Alexander von Humboldt, an important naturalist researcher who lived between the 18th and 19th centuries and is considered the founder of geographic science, is the one who enunciates it. The works by Leka Mendes gathered in the show provoke us to think about the relations of continuity between the sky and the earth, a theme the artist has been thinking about in recent years, and also lead us to fabricate other origin narratives for the planet Earth and the Solar System. Some of the works resemble elements of the celestial landscape, and remind us of the impossibility of capturing the present in astrophysical time.

The show is organized as an installation in the gallery space: in the first room, Leka proposes to create a game between weight and lightness; we witness a kind of dance between satellites and other elements that hover slowly through space. In the second room, we arrive at the scale of the clouds: Leka creates a kind of fog with found materials, juxtaposed and resigned.

Faced with the difficulty of seeing, we are reminded of the limits of the excessive sharpness with which the world presents itself to our perception. We are invited to aim at opacity and observe the sky and the urban environment that surrounds us. In the last room of the installation, Leka lands: landscapes are created from the juxtaposition of layers of colored canvas. Is there only one future horizon for us?

Leka Mendes' works come from the process of collecting, displacing and composing elements and residues from human activity, especially fragments of urban-industrial activity. The artist is interested in the potential for creating speculation and narrative that all objects in the world hold.

Leka Mendes

(São Paulo, 1980) Graduated in Industrial Design at Faculdade de Belas Artes (2004), she previously studied architecture at the same school. With research anchored in photography and image, her production unfolds in fabrics, installations, photographs, objects and drawings. In his current works, he uses traces of the city he collects on his walks, mostly construction debris and plastic discards. He is interested in the narratives of the passage of the human being on Earth and its effects on the transformation of the landscape. Residences: Appleton, Lisbon (September, 2023), and Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (November 2023). He has works in public collections such as Centro Cultural São Paulo, Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro and The Fine Art Laboratory, in Tokyo, Japan, among others. Among his solo and group exhibitions are: Observatorio de imagens inalcançáveis (Temporada de Projetos, Paço das Artes, 2022),

Bolhas Siderais (2021) and Espumas Siderais (Marli Matsumoto Arte Contemporânea, 2021), Segunda Naturaleza (Galeria Fernando Pradilla, Madrid, ES, 2020), 16th Abre Alas (A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, 2020), Novíssimos (Ibeu Gallery, 2018), Biblioteca do Amor (curated by Sandra Cinto, CAC _ Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, USA, 2017 through 2019), Haciendo Dias, (curated by Juan José Santos, Centex, Valparaiso, Chile, 2017), Mapa estratigráfico (Museu de Arte de Ribeirão Preto, MARP, 2014).

Ao entrar nas profundezas, pense nas alturas: Leka Mendes
Curated by Ana Roman
Exhibition from June 17 to July 15, 2023