TOWARDS LIGHT & COLOR - solo show
Curator's Statement
“Push and pull. Stretch. Expand. Turn upside down and flip around. Stitch it up, but not entirely. Wait, is it painting? Yes, it is painting, full of outside life that invades the frame.” Ciça André’s solo exhibition Towards Light and Color is a crossroads for this artist who has been pushing painting to its limits. The action of painting requires commitment to specific steps: to construct a frame, to prepare the canvas and the paints, to finally confront one of the most powerful mysteries in art history––the canvas as a blank slate. But what if the desire for filling that void with either abstraction or representation could be suspended in order for the artist “to make do”? In this recent series of works, André undoes two fundamental aspects of painting––light and color–– to re-signify them. Instead of combining paints to create relationships between color and light, André brings pieces of fabrics, malleable plastic, and found objects together, juxtaposing their inherent characteristics. She borrows textures and colors, inviting the light that fills the gaps between materials, or that passes through translucent objects, to perforate the space inside the frame and touch its outside. A powerful combination of actions takes place––“to stress,” “to wrap,” “to reverse” ––as materials come together around the bare frame. It is as if André were conjuring diverse traditions, the transcendence of Renaissance stained glass, the versatility of assemblage, the gestural impulse of abstract expressionist painting, all brought within the realm of the “crafts” that can be associated with “domestic,” feminine, spaces, and for that reason have often been undermined. André does not seek to peacefully reconcile these traditions, rather she cleverly makes them talk to us. To walk towards light and color becomes a bold move that invites viewers’ whole bodies into the materiality of the works, and into the properties of things.
Tatiane Schilaro
Tatiane Schilaro Santa Rosa
Ph.D. Candidate, History of Art and Visual Culture - UC Santa Cruz, Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, 2018-2019 Creative Director, AnnexB, NY
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TOWARDS LIGHT & COLOR - solo show
Publication
CECILIA ANDRE AT PLAXALL GALLERY - Reviewed by Lucille Colin for artinnewyorkcity.com
There is breathing space between the works of Brazilian Artist Cecilia Andre at Plaxall Gallery in Long Island City. The space is important allowing us to see each work as an individual piece with it’s own uncluttered identity. Each piece is like a chapter in a book about which we are asked to look closely and examine an assortment of ideas.
In a troubled world it is somewhat of a relief to see work that is cheerful and tender. Although colorful, vibrant, cheerful and tender there is something lurking beneath the surface that is audacious and political. There are indirect and direct references to words and countries of conflict, the Congo, Nicaragua, Eygpt and the US.
Using mostly discarded materials, shower curtains, table clothes, lace, bags from cocoa beans, sequins, Cecilia uses this discarded material not only in an environmental way but to relate back to these countries The material can be both carefully cut or ripped apart. The cut edges are like the outlines of a drawing as are the string and the sequins. The loose string and cut vinyl are set as line drawn by the Artist.
The edges of color in “Plorange” are darting out of the frame making their own frame, it is cut like a razor. The simplicity of the inside of this piece calms us, a necessary comfort. Most of the color in the works is not made with paint, it is made by Andre’s coordination of materials and it works beautifully.
There is one Sculpture in the show, “Horn”, it is like a part of a mathematical three dimensional grid. It is an attractive piece, a puzzle we are made to look inside or see what would happen if it were mounted on the wall, either way we get the feeling of harmful overtones. “Fine” represents her Banners – Nothing is overdone, one line of bold stitches, large spans of color with light coming through, an idea of hope, that Cecilia has delicately choreographed, a successful antithesis. Seeing Flags or Banners can make one cringe but Andre’s Banners represent harmony, they are childlike masterpieces.
Lucille Colin
Lucille Colin
Painter living in New York City, Lucile majored in Visual Art and minored in Mathematics.
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TRANSPARENCIES & THREADS - group show
Curator's Statement
For those in NY, I recommend the exhibition "Transparencies & Threads" by Cecília André, opening today at Friday Studio Gallery. I had the honor of curating this show, selecting recent works that would fit the space (where three other artists are also showing), and they are very special.
I've followed Cecilia's work for some years now and one thing that can be said is that every piece exudes joy. Even when addressing topics of melancholy, a sensation that the artist enjoyed the process of making markedly comes through and contaminates the viewer.
Lately, Cecília has been exploring transparent and translucent compositions with diverse and found materials. The works in this show feature this research and the idea of three-dimensional painting, but the main connection between the pieces on view is the use of thread, whether literally or figuratively. Some works have fabric lines interspersed but unwoven, while others have pictorial elements that lead one to imagine a narrative. They are both brought to light through strong colors and free patterns that leave the eye constantly moving and following her thread.
There are more works in the show than I featured here, so to not ruin the surprise!
Mina W. Hugerth
Mina W. Hugerth
Architect, curator and designer with masters' degrees in the history of design and curatorial studies, and in architecture history and theory. Author of multiple published papers and books on design history, having won important awards for her contribution in the field. Main interests revolve around twentieth-century material culture, focusing on the relations between objects and space.
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TIED TOGETHER - solo show
Curator's Statement
Exploring the boundaries beyond canvas and material, Cecilia André weaves the seer into the void and transforms remains in a process of ceaseless renewal.
As the seer, you delve from the past to the future and benefit from a sense of infinitude. Not so fixed in the now, André connects time dots, front and back, before and after, shadows and grids, wood and cloth in an avant-garde approach to the potentialities of matter.
André is the old weaver dealing with contemporary fables. The artist invites not only the eyes but the whole body to float, transit, experiment in the role of a moving being through spatial ruptures. Beware: these elaborate frames not only resuscitate objects otherwise in decay, they actively redeem. Such redemption being the sole route to perpetuating a not merely mythical humanity.
Kátia Bandeira de Mello-Gerlach
Kátia Bandeira de Mello-Gerlach
Brazilian-American lawyer and fiction writer and a resident of New York City. Bandeira’s work is informed by her Lusophone heritage, her strong connection to Brazil and Latin America, and the disquiet of exile. Bandeira is a member of Universidad Desconocida, a collective of Ibero-American writers, including Javier Molea, with whom she co-curated my 2011 Macunaima Project. In 2012 my art piece Two Suns features in the cover of her book Colisoes Bestiais.
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SARAVÁ - solo show
Publication
Review: Cecilia Andre brings sunshine into Belas Artes In Visual Arts
By Sarah Hermes Griesbach, special to the St. Louis Beacon
Brazilian artist Cecilia Andre found herself drawn to the beautiful tile that she encountered everywhere while traveling through Portugal. Her research into the Portuguese tradition of decorative tile is on display in her glimmering painted canvases, now showing for an extended period at the Belas Artes Gallery.
Portugal’s ornamental tiles are called azulejos (from Arabic al-zulayi, meaning polished stone). Andre was struck by the Arab tradition of tiling as an effort to bring the sun-drenched radiance of the outdoors indoors. That is exactly the effect of her paintings. The seaside, the sky, and a tranquil garden, along with musical notes and phrases, entered the gallery space along with her artwork.
Andre’s attraction to the tiles she discovered in Portugal fell into her work in the form of grid lines that imitate grout. The grid lines nearly finish the process of her painting, as a final stage of their production. Occasionally, as in the painting for which the exhibit of her work at Belas Artes Gallery is named, Saravá, the grid lines are crossed. This overlay of words or drips across formal borders adds to the visual depth of Andre’s paintings.
Saravá refers to an Afro-Brazilian expression used as a greeting of welcome. There could hardly be a more fitting name for a collection of art. Andre’s subjects suggest the intimate. She repeats forms: a comb moving through hair, vessels that she refers to as part of her personal archeology. She engages with the materiality of the paint as she applies it, emphasizing the process of layering that helps her create richly complex compositions. Some layers of her paintings are gestural, so that the spray of color emerging from an overturned bottle creates a dynamic motion. The warmth of Andre’s paintings is doubled by their display. Walk into the cozy, yet elegant, Belas Artes Gallery and gallery director Ciléia Miranda-Yuen’s smile and welcome will have the same effect of mimicking the sun’s rays Andre adopts from the Portuguese azulejos.
Miranda-Yuen’s passion to connect St. Louis populations through Latin American art and culture makes Belas Artes a local treasure. Her goals for the gallery space are ambitious. The warm and festive atmosphere found when attending the Belas Artes events she designs to meet those goals, such as the on-going Saravá exhibition, make participation in her efforts a delight.
The basics
Where: 1854 Russell Blvd., St. Louis
When: extended through July 15
Sarah Hermes Griesbach
Sarah Hermes Griesbach
Executive Editor/Co-Founder at All the Art, the Visual Art Quarterly of St. Louis Missouri.