Gesture of Analysis

“What is so wonderful — indeed, almost magical — about our brain is that we can perceive an object based on incomplete information, and we can perceive it as being the same under strikingly different conditions of lighting and context.” — Eric R. Kandel, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science When neuroscientist and University Professor Eric R. Kandel set out to bridge the cultural divide between the arts and sciences in his book Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, he opened up a vast field of possibilities for understanding how we experience abstract art. The two worlds – once seen as distant, even opposed – suddenly appeared as non-identical twins, sharing more similarities than we could ever imagine. Magical – there is, indeed, no better word to describe the act of zooming in on a small piece, in a small room, and realizing that our brain is constantly trying to fill in the gaps of what it perceives. This same act takes place in the micro exhibition “Gesture of Analysis,” which presents the works of Brazilian artist Lilian Walker. A visual artist, researcher, and educator, Walker expands her practice beyond painting and installation, operating through diverse materials and scales: melted wax over plastic mesh, textured paintings of animal fur on found tiles, and landscape-like acrylic drawings based on microscopic images of skin tissue. Lilian’s new body of work, exhibited here for the first time, invites us to perform an act of controlled observation while testing the boundaries of the so-called “aesthetics of the lab.” Her ongoing investigation into the limits of the body – and her understanding of skin as a mutable surface, both shelter and interface – resonates with the scientific impulse to observe, classify, and reduce. Yet, within her practice, these gestures are transformed: the act of zooming in becomes an act of curiosity, of tenderness, of care. The exhibition reconfigures the space it inhabits, exploring the aesthetics of scientific observation – samples, histological images, tiles as specimens – all filtered through an artistic and sensorial lens. In the words of Kandel, perception is never passive; it is a dialogue between what we see and what we have already known. When faced with Lilian Walker’s ambiguous surfaces – skin or landscape, fur or terrain – our brain searches through its archive of memories, images, and sensations to make sense of what is before us. Each viewer brings a different constellation of references to this act of recognition, transforming the experience of seeing into an act of remembering. In this way, Walker’s work mirrors and extends the dialogue with Flavia Regaldo’s own investigations of landscape and mapping: both artists operate in the unstable space between what is observed and what is felt, where perception itself becomes a field of inquiry. Stephanie Albuquerque Wruck