25 Aug 2009

Fernanda Chieco presents The Flycatchers at Galeria Leme

Os Catamoscas (The Flycatchers) – Chieco's first solo exhibition at Galeria Leme - is a series of her most recent works where the artist investigates the widely spread definition that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body and the only one that does not fatigue. Thus she explores the important presence of such an organ for the development of physical and conceptual systems.

The exhibition is led by the homonym piece of the series, which is a drawing made on a ten meters stripe of paper showing a man and a woman sharing one single tongue. From that on the artist branches out the concept towards the other pieces.

In the current series, Chieco's bestiary is composed by animals dealing with human beings whose tongues are stretched out ad infinitum: the frog gets moist by the saliva of several tangled tongues; the sheep blocks the alternative exit for tongues of people deprived of mouth cavity; tongues vibration generate a magnetic field that levitates the guinea pig; tongues investigate the fall of the bird and stimulate the memory of the two headed fish etc.

Chieco's pieces occupy the space of Galeria Leme quietly and imperatively. Amongst them the human body is represented like pieces of a game, with well-determined functions and little or no freewill at all. All individuals in the drawings are obedient, conniving and coherently -performing - the artist's ideas. Despite being together, they are completely strangers to each other. Their action is the only point of connection between them.


About the artist:

Fernanda Chieco (São Paulo, 1976). Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil

Studied MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and BA in Fine Art at ECA-USP. Has also participated on several art residency programmes such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and the Spike Island in Bristol.

Recent exhibitions:Os Catamoscas, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil (2009); Gallery 32, Brazilian Embassy, London, UK; Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, India; Passed as Present, Lodevans Collection, York Art Gallery, York, UK (2008); Process Room, IMMA, Dublin, Ireland; Don't Box Me In, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil; Rendez-Vous, Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon, Lyon, France; The End Begins, The Hospital, London, UK; More Heat Than Light, Basement Gallery, Dundalk, Ireland; Por um Fio, CPFL, Campinas; Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil (2007)