"By The Sea" The visual form of my installation at MoCADA originates in memories of my childhood home—an island in the southern part of Brazil—a serene setting surrounded by the sea, with majestic palm trees and lonely houses scattered along the shore, and crowned by a vibrantly colored sky at dusk. The content is fueled by the writings of Maria Manuela Margarido and Alda do Espirito Santo and personal memories of my country’s political resistance to colonialism. My lifelong social and political awareness began at an early age and, ultimately, found its way into my art in the form of figurative narratives that portray the joy and resilience of the human spirit confronted with social and political hardships. Specific imagery in By the Sea (parrots, coconut palms and the evening sky) was taken from Margarido’s poem Nightfall, which reflects on the disjunction between childhood dreams and adult realities and reminds its readers to dream high.
Priscila De Carvalho, New York, June 2010 |
Acrylic, Ink, enamel, photograph collage, boxes, foam on wall. Approx 7 feet long, 7 feet wide and 30 inches from wall. |
Denise Carvalho, "Passageways"Jersey City Museum, Passageways - exhibition brochure My installation at the Jersey Museum will be my largest and most ambitious work to date. It is a 10 ft. long and 35 ft. wide labyrinthine city constructed in paint, foam, paper, photographs, collage and rubber. Passageways, the title of this exhibition, is related to the absence of streets in the slums, where circulation is provided by stairways or simple tracks. This installation conveys the complexity, chaos and paradoxes of contemporary life that affect America, my native Brazil, and all of humanity in the age globalization. While I address the great ills of humanity such as war, poverty, conflict, drug trafficking and other contemporary issues, they are presented within the full context of a humanity that also hungers for joy and happiness. This body of work incorporates photographs taken during Carnival in Brazil, parades in New York City, as well as portraits of my own friends and photographs taken from everyday life experiences. Carnival in Brazil becomes a prism through which to view universal themes and concerns. The idea of transformation, which is at the very heart of carnival, allows night to become day, the poor to feel rich, and the plain to become glamorous. For a brief period of time, barriers dissolve. These concepts of inversion and transformation allow a life without hope to become, however briefly, a life without limits. My images are collected from the realms of memory, documentary films,
Priscila De Carvalho, New York, March 2009 |
"Passageways" (Installation detail) |
Via large-scale installations, paintings and drawings, I create dynamic architectural landscapes that are inspired by the sprawling, decaying In my imagery and three-dimensional work, I create fantastic worlds in which colors, forms and elements of fantasy all meld together. My work depicts the speed of global cities and overly populated urban environments which I seek to convey by layering abstract and figurative images of winding streets, stairways, network of lights, overhead lines, intense color and infinite energy. I juxtapose my observations about the emergence and co-existence of sub-cultural communities, urban decay, consumerism and drug trafficking issues by embedding personal and found photographs that inhabit the spaces and are manipulated in a way that obscures the particular identities of the figures. Simple materials, ranging from foam and wire to shoe boxes and paint, are used to convey the urgency and energy of building community with what is at hand. In these inner cities I create, there a sense of vastness of the communities that look out from thousands of windows everyday, while raising the question of whether the condition of poverty will also be infinite. Priscila De Carvalho, New York, May 2008 |
"Stairways to a Odd Secret World" (Installation detail) 2008 Sharpie, boxes, photograph collage, tape, acrylic, vinyl on wall. |
