AF Contemporary Art Award 2024

The AF Contemporary Art Award, over its ten years of existence, has established itself as one of the main initiatives for recognizing and valuing the prolific contemporary artistic production of Santa Catarina. The award, in its current format, provides opportunities for the participation of portfolios, with the aim of selecting, in each edition, three finalist artists, in addition to announcing the winning proposal that receives the artistic residency award at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

In this edition, for the first time, three female artists were selected as finalists: Celaine Refosco, from Pomerode, Camila Martins, from Florianópolis, and Dariane Martiól, from Paraná who lives in Florianópolis. This fact attests to the relevance of female artists to the contemporary scene, putting their points of view and artistic productions at the forefront. It is important to emphasize, however, the uniqueness of the processes of the three artists on display, each with their own trajectory and poetic investigation. The work of the finalists mobilizes the context of Santa Catarina, but also finds increasing dialogue at the national level, through exhibitions, artistic residencies and academic contexts.

The exhibition is organized into three axes, in order to present a curatorial selection of each artist's production, with emphasis on the paintings and installations of Celaine Refosco, the ceramic sculptures of Camila Martins and the photoperformances of Dariane Martiól. In this route, texts and speeches by the artists pave the way for their works, a proposal of the curatorship of the last edition that is maintained in the current one, as a way of approaching the thought and production process of each of the artists and the complexity involved in artistic propositions that activate connections between concept, materiality and experience, in an interdependent movement.

Celaine Refosco's work is presented in two blocks: her paintings occupy the walls, while the installations are positioned in the central space of the exhibition space. There are common characteristics among the proposals, both in the use of large format, which invites immersion, and in the use of layers, whether of paint or fabric. The play between the opaque and the translucent, between making the figuration clear and launching into abstraction, is a constant tension. The movement between the works also involves us in this gesture of assembly and disassembly, in an experience that is renewed with each new positioning of the body and gaze. The artist proposes a unique approach to the relationship between painting and textile art, by recognizing the importance of both color and the materiality of the fabric as the basis of painting, characteristics that expand in the installations.

Camila Martins' ceramics sprout from the walls and extend into the space, exploding in vibrant colors and unprecedented shapes. The passage of time is the guiding thread of her production, which is evident both conceptually and in the very materiality of her ceramic sculptures. The works Início. Meio e Fim and Mitochondrial Eve, installed on the wall, affirm the notion of creation and birth, from which radiate multiple and varied creatures that inhabit the exhibition. The sea as a place of origin is crucial to the poetics of the artist from Santa Catarina Island, with emphasis on Ingleses beach, from where she collects sand that becomes part of her works. The spatial organization of the works invites visitors to experiment with other angles, finding new and meticulous details.

In her works, Dariane Martiól often performs alongside her mother, Adair Martiól, who begins to recognize herself and produce as an artist through her joint work with her daughter. In fact, this exhibition features works by both artists, both individual and co-authored. The relationship with her mother is a starting point for questions triggered by her works that are, ultimately, fundamental concerns of the human condition itself, such as the fragility of life and the body and the asymmetries and complexities that involve gender issues and family relationships. The centrality of the body, the opposition between life and death, and the relationship between manual and artificial are elements used both in the performance and in the choice of materials, including the contrast of the use of crochet in images generated by artificial intelligence.

The purpose of this tour is twofold: a dive into individual processes, while encounters and confrontations emerge as the exhibition as a whole unfolds. Through this exhibition, the award highlights and invites an approach to the work of artists who are relevant to the contemporary scene in Santa Catarina, celebrating their trajectories and intense artistic processes.

Fran Favero

Curator