Sonia Gomes Explained

Sonia Gomes
Birth Place:Caetanópolis, Brazil
Field:Sculpture

Sonia Gomes (Caetanópolis, Minas Gerais,1948) is a Brazilian contemporary artist who lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.[1] Gomes frequently employs found objects and textiles in her works, twisting, stretching, and bundling them to fashion wiry or knotty sculptural forms.[2]

Background

Sonia Gomes was born in 1948 to a Black mother and white father in Caetanópolis, a small town in Minas Gerais considered to be the birthplace of Brazil's textile industry.[3] [4] As a child, she showed an interest in deconstructing her clothes and creating her own jewelry from leftover fabric and found materials. Despite this early inclination towards artistic creation, Gomes initially pursued a career in law. In 1994, at the age of 45, Gomes left her legal career to attend the Guignard School of Art in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. This pivotal decision marked her formal entry into the art world.[5] [6]

She credits her maternal grandmother with her interest in art. In a 2022 profile in Sculpture magazine she states, "My grandmother was Black; she was a sorceress and would bless people with a branch of a plant called arruda. It was a ritual she would perform, and the memory of it is really strong for me. Since then, I've always been interested in craft – in things made by hand and folk art and the festivals, rituals, churches, and processions."[7]

In a 2024 interview, Gomes identified Afro-Brazilian artist Arthur Bispo do Rosário as a source of validation, noting they "share a visceral, collective memory that operates unconsciously" and that Bispo, and some other artists of African descent, paved the way for her and others in their struggles to have their practice recognized as art.[8]

Work

Gomes combines secondhand textiles with everyday materials, such as driftwood, wire, and furniture to create abstract sculptures. Her compositions stem from a spontaneous and casual practice of deconstructing and re-assembling everyday objects; Lágrima (Tear) (2014), for example, was made with a blue tablecloth that once belonged to her friend's family.[9] [10] Gomes created Correnteza (2018) using found driftwood and fabric forms she stitched to the wood; critic Paul Laster wrote in Sculpture that the juxtaposition of the fabric and wood created "a compelling tension."[11]

Gomes' use of found and gifted objects is informed by her decolonial standpoint and is both a manifestation of Brazil’s rapid and uneven industrial development and a critique of Brazil's culture of wasteful consumption and environmental destruction.[12] These materials, which arrive at her studio more or less by chance, guide her through the creative process and "always tell [her] what they want to be" as she reshapes and entangles them into one another.[13] She often juxtaposes soft and hard materials, creating movement in her sculptures which allude to her love of popular Brazilian dances. Gomes's work features in international collections and is exhibited in the David Geffen Wing of the Museum of Modern Art.[14] The artist is represented by Mendes Wood DM, Blum & Poe, and Pace Gallery.[15]

In 2024, Gomes represented the Vatican at the Holy See Pavilion in the 60th Venice Biennale, Italy, participating in the "With My Eyes" group exhibition held in the Giudecca Women's Detention Center.[16]

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Critical reception

Gomes came to international attention after her inclusion in the 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor. In the fall of 2022, Gomes presented a major solo show in New York. The New York Times art critic Jillian Steinhauer expressed her views on the show in early January 2023.[41]

"If Gomes has a central theme, that may be it: a sense of willful connection, a determination to use what’s on hand to forge something unexpectedly beautiful."[42]

Public collections (selection)

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Mendes Wood DM Sonia Gomes. 2021-11-10. Mendes Wood DM. en.
  2. News: Times . The New York . 2022-10-05 . Art We Saw This Fall . 2024-04-30 . The New York Times . en-US . 0362-4331.
  3. Web site: OSGEMEOS and Sonia Gomes join Lehmann Maupin. www.lehmannmaupin.com. en-US. 2017-03-11.
  4. Web site: Halperin . Julia . 2022-11-29 . Artist Sonia Gomes Invites Us Into Her São Paulo Studio, Where Cast-Off Fabrics Become Intimate Sculptures . 2023-12-14 . Artnet News . en-US.
  5. Laster . Paul . 2020 . Sonia Gomes . Sculpture . 39 . 1 . 96–97 . Art, Design & Architecture Collection.
  6. Web site: Langlois . Jill . August 28, 2020 . Fabrics With Powerful Stories to Tell . 2023-12-20 . The New York Times.
  7. Whitney . Kay . 2022 . Sonia Gomes: Radical Intimacy . Sculpture . 41 . 2 . 14–17 . Art & Architecture Source.
  8. Veitch . Mara . 2024 . At 45, Sonia Gomes Left Behind a Legal Career to Become an Artist . Cultured Magazine . 2024-02-04.
  9. Web site: Paik. Sherry. 2020. Sonia Gomes Artist Profile. Ocula.
  10. Web site: Sonia Gomes Pace Gallery. 2021-12-03. www.pacegallery.com. 30 September 2020 . en.
  11. Web site: Laster . Paul . Sonia Gomes . . 18 March 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220518061428/https://sculpturemagazine.art/sonia-gomes/ . 18 May 2022 . 29 October 2019 . live.
  12. Web site: Sonia Gomes Pace Gallery . 2023-02-24 . www.pacegallery.com . 30 September 2020 . en.
  13. Web site: Brenner . Fernanda . Sonia Gomes Responds to Her Materials . . 1 Jan 2024 .
  14. Web site: 208 History into Being . 2023-12-13 . MoMa.
  15. Web site: Sonia Gomes Represented by Blum & Poe « News « Blum & Poe. 2021-11-10. www.blumandpoe.com. en.
  16. News: Scott . Alec . 2024-04-19 . The Vatican Transforms a Prison Into a Gallery . 2024-04-23 . The New York Times . en-US . 0362-4331.
  17. Web site: ...vivem no compasso do sol . 2024-06-14 . Mendes Wood DM . pt.
  18. Web site: Sonia Gomes: O mais profundo é a pele (Skin is the deepest part) Pace Gallery . 2023-02-14 . www.pacegallery.com . en.
  19. Web site: When the Sun Rises in Blue « Exhibitions « Blum & Poe. 2021-11-10. www.blumandpoe.com. en.
  20. Web site: 2019-10-12. Museum Frieder Burda: Sonia Gomes "I Rise – I'm a Black Ocean, Leaping and Wide". 2021-11-10. World Art Foundations. en-US.
  21. Web site: Mendes Wood DM Sonia Gomes – The Silence of Color. 2021-11-10. Mendes Wood DM. en.
  22. Web site: MASP. 2021-11-10. MASP. en.
  23. Web site: A Vida Renasce, Sempre. 2021-11-10. C& AMÉRICA LATINA. en.
  24. Web site: 2024-01-31 . Biennale Arte 2024 Biennale Arte 2024: Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere . 2024-06-14 . La Biennale di Venezia . en.
  25. Web site: Exhibition - MAK Museum Vienna . 2024-06-14 . www.mak.at . en.
  26. Web site: 2024-03-26 . Sonia Gomes Pace Gallery . 2024-06-14 . www.pacegallery.com . en.
  27. Web site: MASP . 2024-06-14 . MASP . pt.
  28. Web site: Sonia Gomes . 2024-06-14 . 35th Bienal de São Paulo . en-US.
  29. Web site: Mãos: 35 anos da Mão Afro-Brasileira . 2024-06-14 . MAM . pt-br.
  30. Web site: Sonia Gomes Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea « News « Blum & Poe. 2021-11-10. www.blumandpoe.com. en.
  31. Web site: Sonia Gomes Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art. 2021-11-10. www.biennial.com. en.
  32. Web site: Unconscious Landscape Works from the Ursula Hauser Collection . Hauser & Wirth . 2021-11-10. www.hauserwirth.com.
  33. Web site: Experimenting with Materiality: Terry Adkins, Sonia Gomes, Senga Nengudi, Carol Rama . Lévy Gorvy . 2021-11-10.
  34. Web site: Mercosul Biennial. 2021-11-10. C& AMÉRICA LATINA. en.
  35. Web site: 2018-05-20. Villa Datris: "Tissage, tressage quand la sculpture défile". 2021-11-10. World Art Foundations. en-US.
  36. News: Judah. Hettie. 2017-02-27. Entangled: Threads and Making. en. Frieze. 186. 2021-11-10. 0962-0672.
  37. Web site: Revival Exhibition. 2021-11-10. NMWA. en-US.
  38. Web site: Sonia Gomes reflects upon challenges and achievements as a black woman artist – Editorial. 2021-11-10. SP-Arte. en-US.
  39. Book: Revolution in the making: abstract sculpture by women, 1947-2016 . 2016 . Emily Rothrum . Elizabeth A. T. Smith . Jenni Sorkin . Anne Middleton Wagner . Paul Schimmel . 978-88-572-3065-8 . Milan . Skira . 226 . 932125281.
  40. Book: Art & textiles: fabric as material and concept in modern art from Klimt to the present . 2013 . Markus Brüderlin . Hartmut Böhme . Amy Klement . 978-3-7757-3627-5 . Ostfildern . Hatje Cantz . 861609070.
  41. News: Langlois . Jill . 2020-08-28 . Fabrics With Powerful Stories to Tell . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-02-14 . 0362-4331.
  42. News: Times . The New York . 2022-10-05 . Art We Saw This Fall . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-02-14 . 0362-4331.
  43. Web site: 2023 . 208 History into Being . 2023-12-13 . MoMa.
  44. Web site: Pérez Art Museum Miami Announces New Acquisitions by Thirteen Artists for Permanent Collection • Pérez Art Museum Miami . 2023-02-14 . Pérez Art Museum Miami . en-US.
  45. Web site: Acquisition: Sonia Gomes . 2023-02-14 . www.nga.gov.

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