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Biography

born in rio de janeiro_ brazil_ 1952_ lives and works in geneva_ switzerland

www.maria-carmenperlingeiro.com

For Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro, an artist known for her delicate and rigorous work in stone, sculpture is not only constituted by its meaning and beauty, but also by the radiation that comes off the three-dimensional object. Such radiations are visible, mainly, in the works made with alabaster, a stone originating from the Tuscan region that has peculiar characteristics, such as its subtly opaque translucency and relative softness, which makes it the ideal material for bringing together Perlingeiro’s main interests: the stone and the light. By adding gold leaves or other elements from the mineral or animal world to the incisions, cuts and holes in the stone, the artist creates atmospheres of unique luminosity, where reflections seem to amalgamate inside and outside, stone and light.

Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro studied at the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and graduated from the École Supérieure d’Art Visuel, in Geneva, Switzerland, where she later taught. In the 1980s, she moved to New York, where she studied at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. When visiting Sergio Camargo’s studio, in Carrara, Italy, she fell in love with the density, resistance and weight of marble. In the 1990s, she discovered alabaster, in Volterra, Tuscany, which became her main raw material.

In the 90s, she won the prize from Banco Darier Hentsch & Cie, in Geneva. In 2000 she received 1st Prize in the “Lausanne Jardins 2000” competition, with the landscape project “As Spears de Uccello”. Participated in exhibitions at Paço Imperial (Rio de Janeiro, 2006); Espace Topographie de l’Art (France, 2007); Pinacoteca and Museo Civico (Italy, 2008); LX Factory (Portugal, 2009); Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art (2012); São Paulo Biennial (1975 and 1977), among others. She has been represented by Galeria Raquel Arnaud since 1994.

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Exhibitions

Texts

Luz e Pedra [Light and Stone]: the title of the exhibition alone is a statement by Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro implying that the act of sculpting is not only to create a meaningful three-dimensional object, but also to produce a glow from this object, or from its multiplication, that changes the light of the environment. Tearing it away from what we would expect to see. Following the same lines as the earliest known traces of sculpture, but updating and renovating them in the 21st century, Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro’s work recalls three-dimensional prehistoric assemblages such as the bear skull in Chauvet Cave, placed atop boulders that elevate a horizontal plane to form a pedestal that highlights the piece and lends it a religious aura.

The choice of alabasters, sculpted since the Neolithic Age, shows the same concern for continuity with origins, but Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro knows how to illuminate them with gold inclusions, selenite and its transparent crystals. She brings us into a double dialogue with and about space: first with the sculptures themselves, through their beaming shapes, their surprising inclusions, and then with their relations to one another, or their multiplication, arranged by the artist in order to create a renewed field of vision, made to catch our eye. Indeed, this multiplication challenges the established order and shows the unexpected through a luminous disruption, altering the visual field.

She adds, as I have stated previously, something unique, which only belongs to her: the meaning of her gold inclusions or the holes in the marble, leading to further unpredicted dialogues with the light.

With the continuity of her work with alabaster and the surprises arising from her combinations of materials, Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro creates an art of associations, contrasts, and multiplications of shapes in active interplay with light, renewing our sight.

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