Galeria Fortes Vilaça is pleased to present Quase Cheio, Quase Vazio [Nearly Full, Nearly Empty] by Sara Ramo. In her second solo show at the gallery, the artist presents artworks made using various supports including collage, video projection, installation and photography.
Quase Cheio, Quase Vazio concerns the different forms of perception, which, depending on the point of view, can be nearly full, or nearly empty. For Ramo “this day-to-day ambiguity is often defined one way or the other according to our predisposition for approaching a given theme”. The artworks, conceived especially for the show, also discuss the processes of change through the expressive power of determined objects.
In the show's only installation, Para Levar [To Go], Ramo has taken over a storeroom under the gallery's staircase and completely lined it with cardboard to create a huge box. Its partly opened door and the small light inside invites the viewer to enter, even though the space is not high enough for an adult to stand up in. The artist explores the box as an object symbolizing physical and spatial change.
Two collages of the series Por Todos os Cantos [All Over the Place], made with images from magazines, are arranged on one of the walls. In these artworks, the artist brings together two trends of her work with collage: the use of ready-made images – as in the series Nova Atlântida (2004) – and her abstract compositions, previously explored in the collages of the series Embolar (2005–2008). In the collages, Ramo overlays photographs, inventing new spaces where the notion of inside and outside is confused.
In one of the three videos shown, the artist is seen next to a suitcase from which she takes a saw, a blanket, a lamp, a vacuum cleaner, a telephone, etc., as though there were no end to the space inside. After taking everything out, Ramo gets into the suitcase and closes the lid. In Bem Vindo [Welcome], various scenes of different doors surprise the viewer at every moment. The artwork Quase Cheio, Quase Vazio, from which the exhibition itself gets its title, consists of two synchronized projections. In this video, Ramo revisits the district in Madrid where she spent part of her childhood. Along empty, narrow streets, a ball inside a bubble-wrap bag, Styrofoam packing peanuts and a box alternate among the scenes. “They belong to the same group (box, Styrofoam protection and object) in this labyrinth that I propose, they never meet each other though they are in the same limbo,” the artist states.
Quase Cheio, Quase Vazio confirms the singular way in which the artist transits between diverse languages, using a cohesive and delicate approach to deal with concrete themes in an oneiric way.
