We are pleased to present Terra Líquida [Liquid Earth], Marina Rheingantz’s fourth solo exhibition at Galeria Fortes Vilaça. The artist shows new paintings in various formats, from very large to quite small, which operate on the threshold of figuration. They are an abstract reduction of landscapes that allude to sea cliffs, mountain ranges, seas, marshes, fields and rural areas, visited and invented places that are detached from reality and embody the geometry and texture of the painting.

In Terra Líquida (2016), the piece that gives its name to the exhibition, a maze of puddles integrates the canvas and creates paths between recognizable elementsthat suggest an equestrian club. Measuring over four meters wide, it is the largest painting Marina has ever executed, what required her to constantly move towards and away from the piece while painting it, a movementwhich is then repeated by the viewer. The composition suggests a process of deconstructing an image with successive layers of paint, resulting in the reconstruction of a memory.

However, a closer look reveals the protagonism of the paint in the artist’s process. Marina does not pursue a narrative idea – instead, she deposits layers of robust strokes on the canvas, working the surface and paying close attention to the painting.While she is listening to the color and the paint, the image insinuates itself and the artist now moves on towards a possible narrative. The image is neither the beginning nor the end, it happens along the way.

In the paintings on linen from the series Bordados[Embroideries], the background colors receive a gridded treatment, similar to those embroidering fabrics, by making use of subtle alterations of hues and controlled strokes. Colored bars gently introduce new colors onto the work, while thick lines produce asymmetric patterns and suggestive expanded landscapes.

The opening is marked by the release of the book Terra Líquida (Editora Cobogó), encompassing the entire production of the artist, and including an essay signed by reviewer and curator Rodrigo Moura.

Marina Rheingantz (Araraquara, SP, 1983) has a B.A. in Fine Arts from Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP). She belonged to the group of young artists known as 200and8, which have reaffirmed the power of painting as an artistic language in recent years. She held solo shows at Centro Cultural São Paulo (2012) and at Centro Universitário Maria Antônia (2011), among others. Her participation in collective shows include Projeto Piauí (at Pivô Arte e Pesquisa, São Paulo, 2016), Soft Power (Kunsthal KAdE Amersfoort, the Netherlands, 2016), Os Muitos e o Um (The Many and the One at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, 2016) and No Man’s Land – Women´s Artists from the Rubell Family Collection (Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, 2015). Her work can be found in collections such as those from Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and Itaú Cultural.