Lookout Qatar
Culture Cue
Under the Brazilian Sun Two artists from the tropical paradise bring their latest pieces of work to Doha; so different and yet so alike, we find out what ties these two together.
DARK HUES of midnight blue overpower one half
COLOR PALETTE Clockwise from top right: Padero Varela's midnight blue obsession in "Dawn to Dusk"; Carolina Ponte's "Threads of Infinity" are woolen sculptures; the artist in Ponte abhors the erosion of beautiful accessories.
56
of the room. Pedro Varela’s “Dawn to Dusk” takes the viewer into a secret world deep inside the virgin Amazon, where sunlight seldom seems to reach the forest floor. In the isolated spotlight that the artist shines on this mysterious world, there is a sinister bend in every vine and a menacing bloom to every flower, and yet their dark beauty cannot be denied. With his finetipped pen, Varela weaves a tapestry of distant worlds, ones that we could only hope to see in our dreams or on his canvas. Be it an ambiguous Mediterranean city or an undiscovered thicket of the forest, Varela’s intricate drawings reveal so much using so little, just all kinds of blue imaginable. Even when he obliges to let some color into his world, they only serve to exaggerate the more somber shades. His inspiration comes from scientific drawings made by the early conquistadors, Varela says. When he found the sweet spot in the collision between these stark drawings and his own unique style, he settled down to churn out these arresting images. Directly opposite to these artworks, both in placement and in style sit Carolina Ponte’s riotous knitted threads — “Threads of Infinity.” The greens and yellows and pinks tumble around, crash into each other, merge and rush forward endlessly to create bizarre and wonderful forms. Nothing is what it seems. The woolen sculptures, as they hang from the walls, sweep the floor and rest on a shelf are comfortably, even brazenly, devoid of identity; no two parts of the installation are the same despite there being an illusion of symmetry. “This is my effort to step away from modernism,” she says. Despite her best efforts, she can’t hide her disdain as she utters the last
T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine
word. She laments the erosion of beautiful, useless details and the artistry behind little frills that are there for aesthetics alone. Our obsessive worship of functionality is spilling into the art world, and this is something Ponte will not tolerate. “We have forgotten how beautiful accessories can be,” she says pointing at a particular sculpture, an ornate mirror frame where, instead of the all-important mirror, a thousand multi-threads come pouring out of its gaping mouth. Both Varela and Ponte will be exhibiting some of their latest work at Anima Gallery till April as part of the Qatar Brazil Year of Culture. When the gallery was researching some of the best, young and talented artists from São Paulo to host in their gallery at the opposite side of the world, these two stood out, head and shoulders above the rest. Their styles were different but the story they told was the same, they said. When viewed side by side, the contrasts didn’t seem to matter any more. And unknown to the curators at Anima, there was a reason for this. Because the artworks were dreamt up over the same cups of coffee; they were born in the same studio, slowly brought to life by the two creators as they bumped elbows, joked, laughed and loved together. You see, Varela and Ponte are a couple, and have been since their art school days, something that Anima Gallery didn’t realise till their air tickets were being processed. It’s one of those cosmic coincidences that are best shared over a cocktail, until you look closer and come to terms with the inevitability of it all. "Dawn to Dusk" and "Threads of Infinity" will be on exhibition at Anima Gallery in The Pearl-Qatar till April 9.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT ALTAMIRANO
BY AYSWARYA MURTHY