Maria Nepomuceno

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.

About the Artist

?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, Sa?o 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.