Artist Statement
I am Mayre, a Brazilian artist currently working in the UK. My work is mostly based on the experimentation of materials through which I make conceptual connections with the wider discourses, debates and contexts affecting my outputs and how I work. Most of the time I am recycling or reusing materials. It is important to me, that my practice is sustainable and carried out without environment impact. I seek to make work without financial cost or gain.
Following artists such as Augustus Rodin, Richard Serra, Lydia Clark and others, I moulded used newspapers into abject bodily forms to create ‘dirty’ papier maché sculptures of pole dancers and their environments. I also welded and cast medium-scale metal sculptures, presenting within a multi-media installation. In interrupting a projected video of an earlier performance, they emphasised corruption in Brazil, as parliamentary officials used public money to fund luxury lifestyles. Soil, paper and wood become pliable indigenous objects, weapons and shelters. Anxiety is foregrounded, as reiterative, fretful hand movements and muscular body casts give tangible form to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder using mixed media of alginate, jesmonite, wood, clay and silicone.
I am inspired by memories of being a child playing with red mud in the woods, creating pans and little dolls. The Pau a Pique houses I grew up living in were similarly made from mud and bamboo. Amazon deforestation and genocide have always been central to my work. Recently, the Dam disasters in Minas Gerais 2015/2019 have been foregrounded. How these events are connected to gold mining continues to drive my questioning and intense research. The same materials of mud and bamboo form the barriers built to protect this corrupt and environmentally damaging activity.
Inspired by the concept of Wolfgang Laib’s Pollen artwork, I sieve soil onto canvas and board, fixing it with glue and marking the reverse by burning. I constantly seek to use such materials in different ways, trying to interpret and manipulate the dirt as fragile in my human hands, and thereby indicate the planet’s broader fragility. I feel we humans must recognise that the Earth and its earth are vulnerable, to avoid worsening climate issues. People also don’t treat each other well in these times. Money and power dominate over the awareness and care of our social and physical environment. I hope my work may open up more ecological modes of thinking. The soil hanging on board with animal representations on the other side, capture historical narratives. They ironically romanticize the devastating fires of deforestation and irreversible mistreatment of the ground on which we live.
I use my hands to create sculptures that tell stories. I mix and mould local ruddy earth with materials present to hand such as soil, wood, paper and straw. Going to the woods and collecting sticks, I create structures and tie them using old strings and raffia. Traditionally, the construction of an indigenous Brazilian house brings together the community to help, followed by the sharing of food and drink. My prototype huts and hand-cast forms similarly engage the audience in community experience. I thus planned to facilitate a large-scale participatory project involving others throughout the building process. However, Covid-19 put this on hold and turned my attention to other means of interrogating the body, community, environment and indigenous spaces of inhabitation.
In making work during the pandemic, a feeling of terror and suffocation has emerged. Notions of confinement, frustration and a ‘lack of air’ are foregrounded by the deaths of those with lung conditions from Coronavirus. Having made masks that restricted my breathing when being cast on my face, I felt I had to some extent predicted this. The hand-moulded bird houses that followed during lockdown, were notably restrictive and enclosed. These mud-formed wombs, organs or nests, emphasise the growing need for a safe and bounded home in these strange times. Combined with the masks and a golden frame that makes reference to mining industries, the final installation draws out connections between this virus and the social, political and economic forces shaping our world.
I am Mayre, a Brazilian artist currently working in the UK. My work is mostly based on the experimentation of materials through which I make conceptual connections with the wider discourses, debates and contexts affecting my outputs and how I work. Most of the time I am recycling or reusing materials. It is important to me, that my practice is sustainable and carried out without environment impact. I seek to make work without financial cost or gain.
Following artists such as Augustus Rodin, Richard Serra, Lydia Clark and others, I moulded used newspapers into abject bodily forms to create ‘dirty’ papier maché sculptures of pole dancers and their environments. I also welded and cast medium-scale metal sculptures, presenting within a multi-media installation. In interrupting a projected video of an earlier performance, they emphasised corruption in Brazil, as parliamentary officials used public money to fund luxury lifestyles. Soil, paper and wood become pliable indigenous objects, weapons and shelters. Anxiety is foregrounded, as reiterative, fretful hand movements and muscular body casts give tangible form to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder using mixed media of alginate, jesmonite, wood, clay and silicone.
I am inspired by memories of being a child playing with red mud in the woods, creating pans and little dolls. The Pau a Pique houses I grew up living in were similarly made from mud and bamboo. Amazon deforestation and genocide have always been central to my work. Recently, the Dam disasters in Minas Gerais 2015/2019 have been foregrounded. How these events are connected to gold mining continues to drive my questioning and intense research. The same materials of mud and bamboo form the barriers built to protect this corrupt and environmentally damaging activity.
Inspired by the concept of Wolfgang Laib’s Pollen artwork, I sieve soil onto canvas and board, fixing it with glue and marking the reverse by burning. I constantly seek to use such materials in different ways, trying to interpret and manipulate the dirt as fragile in my human hands, and thereby indicate the planet’s broader fragility. I feel we humans must recognise that the Earth and its earth are vulnerable, to avoid worsening climate issues. People also don’t treat each other well in these times. Money and power dominate over the awareness and care of our social and physical environment. I hope my work may open up more ecological modes of thinking. The soil hanging on board with animal representations on the other side, capture historical narratives. They ironically romanticize the devastating fires of deforestation and irreversible mistreatment of the ground on which we live.
I use my hands to create sculptures that tell stories. I mix and mould local ruddy earth with materials present to hand such as soil, wood, paper and straw. Going to the woods and collecting sticks, I create structures and tie them using old strings and raffia. Traditionally, the construction of an indigenous Brazilian house brings together the community to help, followed by the sharing of food and drink. My prototype huts and hand-cast forms similarly engage the audience in community experience. I thus planned to facilitate a large-scale participatory project involving others throughout the building process. However, Covid-19 put this on hold and turned my attention to other means of interrogating the body, community, environment and indigenous spaces of inhabitation.
In making work during the pandemic, a feeling of terror and suffocation has emerged. Notions of confinement, frustration and a ‘lack of air’ are foregrounded by the deaths of those with lung conditions from Coronavirus. Having made masks that restricted my breathing when being cast on my face, I felt I had to some extent predicted this. The hand-moulded bird houses that followed during lockdown, were notably restrictive and enclosed. These mud-formed wombs, organs or nests, emphasise the growing need for a safe and bounded home in these strange times. Combined with the masks and a golden frame that makes reference to mining industries, the final installation draws out connections between this virus and the social, political and economic forces shaping our world.