Christina Oiticica features in VEJA Rio, in Lu Lacerda’s column, which tells the story behind When the Sky Invades the Earth — the solo exhibition that opened at the Grand Hôtel Majestic, on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Italy. The Rio-born artist, who lives in Geneva with her husband, the writer Paulo Coelho, presents a show curated by Adelina von Fürstenberg with around 40 paintings and drawings.

At the centre is Mamã Muxima, a canvas submerged in the lake for three months — and a work born from a dream. “I dreamed I climbed a mountain with a friend to visit a church dedicated to Our Lady of the Conception. Inside it was all dark and I could only see a red figure… When the lights came on, I saw it was red because it was an Our Lady covered in hearts. I decided to paint her with the hearts. Later I discovered, by chance, Our Lady of the Conception of Muxima, in Angola, known as Our Lady of the Hearts and patron saint of the country,” she recounts — a dream that bridges Brazil and Angola beneath the waters of an Italian lake.

The article highlights Christina as one of the leading voices in Land Art: she leaves her canvases exposed to rain, sun and wind, or buried for long periods, so that nature imprints unique, unrepeatable marks on them. The exhibition also includes illustrations created for a special edition of Paulo Coelho’s Stories for Parents, Children and Grandchildren, two works made with the Indigenous artist Txa Txu Pataxó and buried for a year beneath a gameleira tree in Bahia, and pieces from the Birth of Venus series, transformed by the salt of the Marsala salt flats in Italy.

Exhibition: When the Sky Invades the Earth — Grand Hôtel Majestic, Lake Maggiore, Italy · Language: Portuguese