Gerais

"People see a nation from there, deep within the gerais of Goiás, where there are slow, great rivers, with always such clear and pleasant water, flowing over beds of rose-tinted crystal…" Guimarães Rosa, Grande Sertão: Veredas Silence. Dry terrain, thin skeletons of palm trees, warm leaves, an unseen blazing sun. See-through linen and smudged layers of paint underneath bee's wax. Silence again. A pair of twin peaks of water emerges from the deep greens, resembling a bride's gown, yet it's a portal to a reimagined world. Isadora Almeida, originally from Brasília, has based her visual practice on the investigation of mainly Brazilian landscapes and its implications surrounding our relationship to space, natural territories and the practice of painting itself. The paintings here presented pose some questions: what lives behind the images we see? Is it possible for us to decode the image in order for it to be slowly digested? How much of our natural landscapes are mediated by culture? Ultimately, how do we develop new thought patterns about trivial, domestic, and overlooked nature that surrounds us? In W.J.T. Mitchel's "Thesis of Landscape" he states: "Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside the package". This reflection offers a profound entry point to the complexities related to landscape as both a natural and cultural phenomenon. The landscape here is not merely a passive or monotonous background, but an active and somewhat nostalgic participant in cultural mediation. Regardless of how we engage with the land - whether through art, storytelling or simply observing - we filter it through the lens of culture, turning them into both a real place and an idea, both a reflection of nature and a projection of our values and histories. Isadora's paintings are shaped by human experience, memory and imagination. All three paintings display a mirrored effect, in which there are always at least two palm trees co-existing. Like an altar, the promise of a mysterious new world is within reach, hidden in between the fabrics of gray linen. Perhaps the persistent presence of pairs is a subconscious manifestation of the artist's own understanding of land and culture. In addition, Mitchel's idea of landscape as both a "real place and its simulacrum" is represented by Isadora's tensioning between the physical world and its artistic or cultural representations through the medium of oil painting. In 2020, Almeida turned her gaze toward the landscape as something fixed and material, beginning to paint from photographs she took, primarily while on the road. She took the GO-118 and GO-229, roads which traverse vast lands that cut through the state of Goiás numerous times and are symbols of movement, separation, and the homogenization of space. The axis "Minas-Bahia-Goiás", the "gerais" of Guimarães Rosa, became the background to her latest paintings and also one of the driving forces behind her committed research to the ways we construct, understand and ultimately see paintings of nature. Isadora's emotional and sensorial connection to such places is evident; the low contrast, small scale pieces and constant palms, result in a tiny but powerful compilation. Weaving her line of thought, which traverses questions related to her past experiences in Brazil, reflections on distant yet persistent memories within dreams and daydreams, a rigorous and delicate investigation into the history of landscape painting in Brazilian territory, and finally, a broad mapping of new ways of seeing what exists beyond the image. Stephanie Albuquerque Wruck