Sonia Gomes

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Sonia Gomes
Born1948 (age 75–76)
Caetanópolis, Brazil
NationalityBrazilian
Known forSculpture

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 sculptures, twisting, stretching, and bundling them to fashion wiry or knotty forms.[2]

Background[edit]

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 the textile industry in Brazil.[3][4] As a child, she showed an interest in deconstructing her clothes and creating her own jewelry from leftover fabric and found materials.[5] 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.[3][6][5]

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[edit]

Correnteza (2018) at the National Gallery of Art in 2023

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[edit]

Group exhibitions[edit]

  • With My Eyes, 60th Venice Biennale, Italy (2024).
  • HARD/SOFT, Vienna, Austria (2023)
  • Tropic of Cancer, Palm Beach, US (2023)
  • Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju, Korea (2021)[23]
  • Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK (2021)[24]
  • Unconscious Landscape – Works from the Ursula Hauser Collection, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, UK (2019)[25]
  • Experimenting with Materiality, Lévy Gorvy, Zurich, Switzerland (2019)[26]
  • Histórias Afro-Atlânticas, MASP, São Paulo, Brazil (2018)[21]
  • O Triângulo Atlântico, 11ª Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2018)[27]
  • Tissage, Tressage, Fondation Villa Datris, L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, France (2018)[28]
  • Entangled, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2017)[29]
  • Revival, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA (2017)[30]
  • All the World's Futures 56ª Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2015)[31]
  • The New Afro-Brazilian Hand, Museu Afro Brasil, Sao Paulo (2013)[32]
  • Art & Textiles – Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2013)[33]

Critical reception[edit]

Gomes came to international attention after her inclusion in the 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor.[6] 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.[34]

"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."[35]

Public collections (selection)[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Mendes Wood DM | Sonia Gomes". Mendes Wood DM. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  2. ^ Times, The New York (5 October 2022). "Art We Saw This Fall". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  3. ^ a b "OSGEMEOS and Sonia Gomes join Lehmann Maupin". www.lehmannmaupin.com. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  4. ^ Halperin, Julia (29 November 2022). "Artist Sonia Gomes Invites Us Into Her São Paulo Studio, Where Cast-Off Fabrics Become Intimate Sculptures". Artnet News. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  5. ^ a b Langlois, Jill (28 August 2020). "Fabrics With Powerful Stories to Tell". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
  6. ^ a b Laster, Paul (2020). "Sonia Gomes". Sculpture. 39 (1): 96–97 – via Art, Design & Architecture Collection.
  7. ^ Whitney, Kay (2022). "Sonia Gomes: Radical Intimacy". Sculpture. 41 (2): 14–17 – via Art & Architecture Source.
  8. ^ Veitch, Mara (2024). "At 45, Sonia Gomes Left Behind a Legal Career to Become an Artist". Cultured Magazine. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  9. ^ Paik, Sherry (2020). "Sonia Gomes | Artist Profile". Ocula.
  10. ^ "Sonia Gomes | Pace Gallery". www.pacegallery.com. 30 September 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  11. ^ Laster, Paul (29 October 2019). "Sonia Gomes". Sculpture. Archived from the original on 18 May 2022. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  12. ^ "Sonia Gomes | Pace Gallery". www.pacegallery.com. 30 September 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  13. ^ Brenner, Fernanda. "Sonia Gomes Responds to Her Materials". Frieze. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  14. ^ "208 History into Being". MoMa. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  15. ^ "Sonia Gomes Represented by Blum & Poe « News « Blum & Poe". www.blumandpoe.com. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  16. ^ Scott, Alec (19 April 2024). "The Vatican Transforms a Prison Into a Gallery". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  17. ^ "Sonia Gomes: O mais profundo é a pele (Skin is the deepest part) | Pace Gallery". www.pacegallery.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  18. ^ "When the Sun Rises in Blue « Exhibitions « Blum & Poe". www.blumandpoe.com. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  19. ^ "Museum Frieder Burda: Sonia Gomes "I Rise – I'm a Black Ocean, Leaping and Wide"". World Art Foundations. 12 October 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  20. ^ "Mendes Wood DM | Sonia Gomes – The Silence of Color". Mendes Wood DM. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  21. ^ a b "MASP". MASP. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  22. ^ "A Vida Renasce, Sempre". C& AMÉRICA LATINA. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  23. ^ "Sonia Gomes | Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea « News « Blum & Poe". www.blumandpoe.com. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  24. ^ "Sonia Gomes | Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art". www.biennial.com. Retrieved 10 November 2021.[permanent dead link]
  25. ^ "Unconscious Landscape Works from the Ursula Hauser Collection". www.hauserwirth.com. Hauser & Wirth. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  26. ^ "Experimenting with Materiality: Terry Adkins, Sonia Gomes, Senga Nengudi, Carol Rama". Lévy Gorvy. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  27. ^ "Mercosul Biennial". C& AMÉRICA LATINA. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  28. ^ "Villa Datris: "Tissage, tressage quand la sculpture défile"". World Art Foundations. 20 May 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  29. ^ Judah, Hettie (27 February 2017). "Entangled: Threads and Making". Frieze. No. 186. ISSN 0962-0672. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  30. ^ "Revival | Exhibition". NMWA. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  31. ^ "Sonia Gomes reflects upon challenges and achievements as a black woman artist – Editorial". SP-Arte. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  32. ^ Emily Rothrum; Elizabeth A. T. Smith; Jenni Sorkin; Anne Middleton Wagner; Paul Schimmel (2016). Revolution in the making: abstract sculpture by women, 1947-2016. Milan: Skira. p. 226. ISBN 978-88-572-3065-8. OCLC 932125281.
  33. ^ Markus Brüderlin; Hartmut Böhme, eds. (2013). Art & textiles: fabric as material and concept in modern art from Klimt to the present. Translated by Amy Klement. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz. ISBN 978-3-7757-3627-5. OCLC 861609070.
  34. ^ Langlois, Jill (28 August 2020). "Fabrics With Powerful Stories to Tell". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  35. ^ Times, The New York (5 October 2022). "Art We Saw This Fall". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  36. ^ "208 History into Being". MoMa. 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  37. ^ "Pérez Art Museum Miami Announces New Acquisitions by Thirteen Artists for Permanent Collection • Pérez Art Museum Miami". Pérez Art Museum Miami. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  38. ^ "Acquisition: Sonia Gomes". www.nga.gov. Retrieved 14 February 2023.

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