Maria Nepomuceno
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AboutUntitled, 2016
Maria Nepomuceno pushes ancient traditions and complex craft techniques into a wholly contemporary engagement with space and structure, form and concept. Using traditional methods of rope weaving and straw braiding as well as techniques of her own design the artist has, since the early 2000s, developed a process of sewing coils of coloured rope in spirals. She explores the potentially endless permutations of this adaptable form in sculptures and installations that incorporate beads, playful ceramic forms and found objects of varying sizes.
Nepomuceno’s works are chromatically, culturally and metaphorically rich, suggesting animals, plants, the human body and landscapes ranging from the microscopic to the macroscopic. That the sculptures appear anthropomorphic and organic is essential to a reading of the work: the spiralling central to Nepomuceno’s process relates to the spirals occurring naturally throughout the universe, giving shape to entire galaxies as well as the blueprint for existence, DNA. The results are intended to harness the extended time of their making while simultaneously inviting the viewer to pause, draw close and engage with complex cycles of energy and creation.
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Selected Works
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BiographyUntitled, 2016
Maria Nepomuceno was born in 1976 in Rio de Janeiro, where she continues to live and work. Recent exhibitions include the solo presentations Nasci de uma flor at Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2024); Big Bang Boca, Instituto Artium de Cultura, São Paulo, Brazil (2023); Maria Nepomuceno: Dentro e Fora Infinitamente, SCAD Museum of Modern Art, Georgia, USA (2022); Maria Nepomuceno: Refloresta!, The Portico Library, Manchester, UK (2021). Selected group exhibitions include, Acts of Gathering, Eden Projects, Cornwall, UK; Narrative Threads: Fiber Art Today, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, USA (2023); Forest: Wake This Ground at Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2022); and My Body, My Rules, Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA (2020).
The artist’s work has previously been exhibited at institutions such as Stavanger Art Museum, Norway; Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Barbican Center, London, UK; Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK; Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa; Auckland Art Gallery, USA; Daejeon Museum of Art, South Korea; Hudson Valley Center of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, USA and MFA, Boston, USA, among others.
Works by the artist are included in the collections of Museu de Arte da Bahia, Brazil; MFA Boston, USA; Guggenheim Museum, USA; Pérez Art Museum Miami, USA; Rubell Museum, USA, among others.
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News
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Maria Nepomuceno: Big Bang Boca at Artium Cultural Institute, Sao Paulo
August 27, 2023Curated by Danniel Rangel, the exhibition (27 August– 4 November 2023) comprises a single installation, developed especially for the architecture of the historic mansion. Speaking...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno features in Forest: Wake this Ground at Arnolfini, Bristol
June 16, 2022This major group exhibition (9 July–2 October 2022) includes artists, writers, filmmakers and composers from across the globe, with works that recycle, reuse and repurpose...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno: Refloresta!
July 1, 2021On view beneath the Portico Library's Regency-period glass dome (1 July–11 October 2021) works by the artist will be shown alongside natural history books and...Read More -
Works by Maria Nepomuceno feature in the opening displays of the Norval Foundation, Cape Town
April 26, 2018The Norval Foundation (opening 28 April 2018) is a new centre for the research and exhibition of 20th and 21st-century visual art from South Africa...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno: Afetosyntesis at Kunsthuset Kabuso, Norway
September 23, 201723 Sept – 22 Dec 2017 Using traditional methods of rope weaving and straw braiding as well as techniques of her own design Maria Nepomuceno...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno in Hello, City! at Daejeon Museum of Art
June 11, 2017The artist's recent work Untitled , 2016, made of ropes, beads, ceramic and braided straw, is included in the exhibition (23 June - 9 October...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno at Stavanger Art Museum
April 15, 201717 March - 28 May 2017 Using coloured rope and beads, Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno (b. 1976) creates organic sculptures that spread outwards and fill...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno interviewed in Studio International
January 9, 2017The Brazilian artist talks about her fascination with hammocks, her novel way of amalgamating painting and sculpture, and the power of ancestral connections. By Angeria...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno: Sim reviewed in Candid Magazine
November 17, 2016By Hannah Barton As the winter nights draw in closer, the opportunity to attend the private view of the Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno was a...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno discusses Sim, her new exhibition at Victoria Miro Mayfair
November 11, 2016Sim , Maria Nepomuceno's first exhibition at Victoria Miro Mayfair, features dynamic floor- and wall-based sculptures. These new works expand upon the Rio de Janeiro-based...Read More -
Amuse interviews Maria Nepomuceno ahead of her Victoria Miro Mayfair exhibition
November 10, 2016Meet the Brazilian Artist Challenging Our Notion of Waste. By Iona Goulder You may know Maria Nepomuceno’s large-scale sculptures better than you know her name....Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno, Wangechi Mutu and Celia Paul included in NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection at NMWA, Washington DC
November 9, 2016National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is collaborating with the Rubell Family Collection (RFC) to realize a new vision for NO MAN’S LAND...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno: Cosmic Teta at the Barbican Centre
24 May - 28 August 201624 May - 29 August 2016. Cosmic Teta , a new commission for the foyer of the Barbican Centre , London. Using materials and techniques...Read More -
Maria Nepomuceno interviewed in the FT
November 28, 2014Maria Nepomuceno’s statement sculptures. By Rachel Spence. The bright, biomorphic forms of the Brazilian artist suggest an alternative to wasteful consumerism. On a lightless winter...Read More
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Gallery Exhibitions
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Maria Nepomuceno: Expiro
14 Sep – 12 Oct 2024 VeniceThe title of the exhibition is derived from a work by the artist of the same name: Expiro, a Portuguese word chosen for its similarity, in sound and meaning, to the Italian espiro, to exhale, which in turn relates to the traditional glassblowing techniques used for the first time by the artist in the creation of these works.Learn More -
Maria Nepomuceno: Sim
11 Nov 2016 – 14 Jan 2017 Victoria Miro MayfairVibrant and seductive floor- and wall-based sculptural works feature in this exhibition, the artist’s first at Victoria Miro Mayfair. Displaying a characteristically dynamic approach to form, these new works expand...Learn More -
Maria Nepomuceno: TRANS
13 Mar – 17 Apr 2014 London Gallery IIAn exhibition featuring a vibrant and seductive series of sculptural installations and interventions. For this exhibition, the Rio de Janeiro-based Nepomuceno expands her characteristically dynamic approach to form, using traditional...Learn More -
Maria Nepomuceno: The Force
12 Oct – 12 Nov 2011Victoria Miro is pleased to present new work by Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno, whose seductive sculptures and installations made of brightly coloured rope, straw, ceramic and beads spread throughout the...Learn More -
Maria Nepomuceno
7 May – 12 Jun 2010 London Gallery I‘Maria Nepomucen’s woven and beaded sculptures feel entirely self-sufficient. They're at once charming and mysterious, relaxed and vivacious, like the never-entirely-gentle Rio environment that produced them.’ Holland Cotter, The New...Learn More
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