Flora Assumpcao

FLORA ASSUMPTION

Artist from a Paulista family, born in the south of MG. Artistic training at ECA-USP in São Paulo. Lives and works between Recife-PE, Petrolina-PE, Juazeiro-BA and São Paulo-SP(where she does post-doctoral research atUNESP), keeping atelier in the south of MG, in Recife and Petrolina.

www.floraassumpcao.art | @flora .assumpcao

PhD artist (2019), Master (2014) and graduated in visual arts, specialising in printmaking (2008) from the Fine Arts Department of ECA-USP, with FAPESP and CAPES scholarships.

In 2018 she was a visiting researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB-Spain).

She currently teaches visual arts at the undergraduate programme of UNIVASF (Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco) and at the master's degree programme in visual arts of UFPE-UFPB.

 Since 2002 he has been practicing several techniques and languages, such as drawing, painting, engraving, photography, objects, installations and architectural/urban interventions. He investigates the relationship of the body with the scales of the miniature and architecture.

It works with themes related to the natural element and the fantastic (supernatural), in an attempt to reflect on human action in the face of the natural world. Nature appears in the form of creatures (mainly small sea creatures, reptiles and plants) and natural phenomena (such as fog, storms, hurricanes, seas, clouds, deserts, volcanoes and moonlight) under a mysterious, unusual and fantastic atmosphere brought from legends, myths and popular tales from Brazil and the world. This is an artifice to approach other subjects beyond what the fictional situation presented proposes (as do fairy tales and legends). The human appears in the visual relationship established between the body of animals and the modus operandi of natural phenomena with the mechanisms (machines) created by humanity, in allusion to the idea of inevitability of the artificial machine in copying the mechanisms of nature, because all the principles were created before by nature.

In synthesis, his artistic research is organised through 3 axes:

- O myth (popular beliefs and folklore) and religion are humanity's initial form of relating to nature and the world in order to try to understand them, often motivated by the search for solutions to reassure our fears and anxieties;

- A science does the same, but with a claim to objectivity and precision/accuracy, to absolute truth;

- A literature (mainly magical/fantastic realism, fairy tales and fables) drinks from the 2 previous sources, rationalising and organising even when it clearly trails through the field of mythology and spirituality.

She received the awards FUNARTE Arte Monumento Brasil2016, SESI Artistic Occupation Award (2013-14), ArteRef Contemporary Art Awards (2013), 1st Prize at the 10° Salão Elke Hering, Blumenau-SC (2012), Jury Outstanding Award at the 16° Encontro de Artes Plásticas de Atibaia (2007) and the 1st Nascente 12 Award (2002). In 2014 she was nominated in the Best Exhibition of the Year category by the Folha de São Paulo Guide and in 2010 she was a finalist in the EDP Energies in Art Award.

He has had solo exhibitions at the Museu da Energia (SP), Galeria Janete Costa and MAMAM (both in Recife-PE), Pinacoteca de Maceió-AL, Galeria Emma Thomas (SP) and Oficina Cultural Oswald de Andrade in São Paulo.

He has works in institutional collections in Brazil, Portugal, Spain and China. His work has been published in several exhibition catalogues and art magazines.

He has participated in group exhibitions at Centro Universitário Maria Antônia (USP), Paço das Artes, CCSP, MAC-USP, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Galerias Emma Thomas, Vermelho and Gravura Brasileira, etc. He has exhibited in group shows and art salons in several cities in Brazil, USA, Portugal, Japan and Argentina, such as: Salão Luiz Sacilotto in Santo André (2003, 2015 and 2016), Belém (ArtePará 2010 and 2014), Salão de Abril in Fortaleza-CE (2011), Itajaí-SC (12° SNAI-2010), Piracicaba-SP (42°SAC), Atibaia-SP (2003, 2004 and 2007), Latin Eye Printmaking Biennial (Atibaia-SP), Belo Horizonte-MG, Vitória-ES, Porto Alegre-RS, (BELA Print 2013) at the Enokojima Centre for the Creative Arts, in Osaka, Japan and the Bienal Sudamericana de Grabado y Arte Impreso Rio/Córdoba (2014-15), and 9th International Printmaking Biennial Douro (2018) and 3rd Global Print (2017), both in Portugal.

Por: Galeria Gravura Brasileira