Born in 1985, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Lives and works in New York, USA
Bringing Us Closer
Alice Quaresma’s works, mixing personal photographs and abstract paintings, take the spectator on a poetic journey. She uses her own pho- tographs on which she paints abstract geometric shapes, and revisits this medium by proposing new ways of understanding it. Her works offer an emotional reading by guiding the viewer’s gaze, and show a strong connection with her own history. The transfer of the viewer’s attention to color allows him to penetrate a singular and playful imagery where scenes of the past are transformed into landscapes of the future. By playing with geometry, she creates a physical engagement between the work and its viewer. This creative process is strongly linked to the Brazilian neo-concrete art movement, which ques- tions the sensations produced by a bodily engagement with the works, through the use of abstract forms with subjective colors. As a Brazilian artist, Alice Quaresma is strongly influenced by this movement and reuses its principles to marry painting and photography. This use of varied forms also allows her to play with the descriptive function of photography by hiding or revealing different elements.
Exhibited this year at a ppr oc he, this project was born from the reuse of old negatives that she keeps in her archives, in order to offer them a new history. The artist not only reinvests her memories, but she also chooses to explore the materiality of painting. Thanks to a subtle play of colored layering of varying thicknesses, Alice Quaresma materializes a concrete and tangible space.
Alice Quaresma studied Fine Arts and History of Art in London, at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and New York at Columbia University. In 2013 she participated in the Barracão Maravilha Residency in Rio de Janeiro and in 2014 won the Foam Talent Prize. In 2021, she participated in the Every Woman Biennial in New York. She is nominated for the National Prize of Contemporary Art of Brazil in 2022. Her work is widely exhibited internationally, and is the subject of several publications, including the artist book Playground published in 2019 by Bessard publishing.
