Painting’s relationship with nature is almost as old as human beings. If we return to cave paintings, we see human experiences portrayed there with everything that nature encompasses, from the beings that live there, the adversities they experienced, the materials they explored and even metaphors perceived by people at that time. The representation of nature advances as human beings also advances, going through the most diverse types of representation, sometimes heading in the direction of figuration and others of abstraction. The subject of nature is not exhausted since our relationship with it is impossible to have an end to. It is a curious relationship, in which the parties do not fully understand each other, often living in contradiction; It is the most real and most metaphorical relationship we have. We belong there, even if it often doesn't seem like it.
The Flying Rivers also enter this great metaphor. They are flyers, but not in the way we readily imagine. They are found in the deepest soil on which humanity is established, they know no borders, they are not adept at politics or any moral restrictions that may exist for life above them. They integrate biomes and the most diverse geographies, becoming responsible for distributing water across the planet, directly or indirectly. They fly when they hit trees, clouds and move around the globe, they are so invisible and at the same time so visible and obvious that they often go unnoticed by us.
Celaine Refosco leads us to reflect on this phenomenon and the ways in which human action has had an impact on changing it. When we add political disputes, conflicts of interests and a blind ambition for money, man has destroyed nature without considering the possible consequences. The artist reminds us that we live these consequences daily, directly, or indirectly. She presents us with paintings that challenge us to embark on this flight in the same way that nature does, in an integrated and connected way. We realized how distant we had become from our surroundings, this flight should have been free, almost spontaneous, but we lost our way.
Merleau-Ponty once pointed out that painters can only build images, and it is up to them to integrate into people, joining separate lives, coming to live in all of us. In this way, the images we see mix with our ancestral relationship with nature and, when we fly alongside the works of Celaine Refosco, it is like a return to our origins. What the artist gives us is more than an invitation to regain sensitivity, it is a reminder of our belonging.
Curatorial Text - By Cássia Pérez
Colab
Cássia Pérez
Images