Ocupa Exposição

By Cássia Pérez e Celaine Refosco

While an exhibition is a well-known and established format, from which everyone knows what to expect, occupation is a recent term used to define a multiple and loosely defined use of a space. By definition, it accepts and seeks a more fluid and natural interaction between place, artist, and audience, from which much can happen, opening space for the unexpected.

Between the visible and the invisible, it aims to be both: both an occupation, showcasing the multiplicity of actions of an artist in the seclusion of her own studio, now located in an area visible to anyone entering the space, and an exhibition that showcases completed works, but also showcases work in progress, including its various stages — studies, writings, documentation — in addition to the actual production of the work itself, making visible normally invisible aspects of an artist's work.

In the common sense, art is seen as a result, often reduced to its merely decorative aspects, but in reality, it is much more than that. Art is a complex and profound human process that involves the elaboration of life and the world, both for those who make it and for those who experience it, in any of its forms—music, dance, performing arts, and visual arts - in its multiple expressions.

Between February 14 and April 21, 2023, artist Celaine Refosco, a painter and illustrator residing in Pomerode, leaves the seclusion of her studio and transfers her daily activities to the Erwin Teichmann Municipal Art Gallery, seeking to fill the space not only with the results of her many years of work, but above all, with a willingness to fill it with her presence and her process.

With the process of making art, but also with the development of thought, the experience of each line and brushstroke, the awakening of will, the construction of understanding, with life, with light, and with art.

Also open to the unexpected brought about by interaction with the unknown. Life is very much in the interfaces, between limits. Like a seed that germinates in a crack in the asphalt, emerging vigorously from where nothing is expected, so is art.

It's important that artists and audiences understand what is being constructed as art is being made. This way, we can understand that art is more than the executed result. There's a large and important invisible component to an artist's production. Humanity is built in these processes.