The exhibition “Elizabeth Jobim – O Tempo das Pedras” brings together for the first time a significant part of the works of Rio de Janeiro artist Elizabeth Jobim, from drawings made in the 1980s to her most recent production, with the intention of highlighting the singularity of her poetics. In the first room, there are the series Laocoonte and Rapto das Sabinas (1987-1989), which appear in the context of the “80s Generation” and stand out for their loose gestures combined with the simultaneous movement of construction and deconstruction of the figures, in which the artist captures three-dimensionality through the fragmentation of the body in space. The same perceptual exercise underlies the small drawings and paintings of stones and tubes of paint, as well as in the assembly organized from parts or fragments of stones drawn with blue acrylic paint expanding across the wall.
Next, the mural painting Aberturas, which Jobim created at the invitation of the V Mercosul Biennial (2005), is reassembled. A milestone in its trajectory, the installation explores the relationships between perception, graphic line and the limit of objects in conflict with the architectural space itself. Since then, her work has been in an explicit dialogue with architecture, often breaking the boundaries between drawing, sculpture and painting, as in the set Blocos (2013). The fragmented element of perception reappears in the impossibility of retaining a single vision of the paintings with volumes that dialogue with the white of the wall, simultaneously suggesting the continuity and discontinuity of the gaze.
In the last room, the exercise of observation and balance reappears in recent sculptures in stone and pigmented cement. As mineral matter, stones are the image of time and chance, since their shapes are never repeated and result from a slow process of solidification. Finally, Jobim's latest sewn fabric canvases are on display, in which the graphic line becomes the thread that amalgamates dissonant colors and textures.
Taisa Palhares
curator
