Parcours, Récoltes

October 2001 – La Petite Galerie – Brussels, Belgium
November 2001 – Espaço Multimodal da Embaixada do Brasil – Berlin, Germany
November 2001 – Galerie Debret – Paris, France

Endless cards collected over 10 years of countless comings and goings. Hotel keys, phone cards, visiting cards, boarding passes, credit cards, a series of small rectangles of paper or plastic, carrying within them a memory, a challenge, a town.

Times lived, paths crossed. Touches, sounds, voices, divided emotions, sweet longing. The name was given: “Travelled, Collected” (Parcours Récoltés).

The cards bring with them several images: of flowers, towns, landscapes, birds… however one fascinated me particularly: in Germany, as she dialed someone’s number, the phone card showed a mysterious mouth, with a smile of irony or complicity. Based on this card, I was able to re-read that very moment in my life.

Christina Oiticica – Delirium in Red

She is Brazilian, which should come as a surprise to no-one, seeing the colors she prefers.

The artist’s work, for the first time on show in Brussels, is a veritable Rio de Janeiro Carnival made of delirious images, extravagant birds, crazy flowers, bewitched rhythms, excesses, all worthy of the most impassioned Cariocas!

When we are told she is the wife of “alchemist” novelist Paulo Coelho, then we understand the ardor of the lady. “Christina does not show just a painting” – explains her writer husband – “she shows a piece of each of our lives using her colors and her soul.”

She created her current artistic path – other paths have come before this one – based on magnetic cards. Credit cards, telephone cards, boarding tickets gathered over time and circumstances. She used and multiplied them in a scenario scripted by her visions. Credulous to an almost mystic degree, she offers us an eruption – an eternal symphony – of red mouths and hearts.

Her works – both oil on canvas and mixed techniques on cushions and objects – have titles like “Rainfalls of Roses”, “Heart of Color”, “Jasper with Chrome Chain and Pearls”, “Heart of Quartz with Wires” … that is enough, no more examples are needed!

Although the themes are similar, each object is different.

Texts in all languages from Chinese to Persian, Spanish to Portuguese, decorate the paintings. Sometimes they are illustrated with texts by Paulo Coelho, interspersed with small gold-thread hearts decorated with tulle and lace. At other times an electronic chip repeats its silent message.

Since 1980, Christina Oiticica has exhibited little in Europe and a great deal in South America, where her overflowing sensibility surely adapts better to the spirit of the place, which would not happen on this old Continent turned dull from spending so much time contemplating its own navel. Her work smells of passion, folly, a storm of feelings … there is a certain undeniable touch of poetry to this pseudo-metaphysical abundance whose lack of nuance is offset by conferring a fascinating symbolic reality on the color red.

La Petite Galérie – 1, rue de Livourne (Place Stéphanie). Until October 28, Wednesday to Saturday 2:30-6:30 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.-1 p.m.