—
Juliana Cerqueira
Leite
Climb, 2011
Forton mg, Urethane foam
366 W x 61H x 56 D cm
Available for sale
Climb is one in a series of Juliana Cerqueria Leite’s works that is made
using a unique fabrication process. The form is a cast of the space left
in a large volume of clay which the artist has physically climbed
upwards through. The clay itself is inserted within a sonotube, an
industrial strength cardboard used for casting concrete. The
repetitive movements of her barely-clothed body creates a document
of this movement in the clay, leaving decipherable impressions of her
elbows, knees, feet and toes on the sculpture’s exterior. This simple,
yet physically demanding process preserves a specific sequence of
actions and the surprisingly uniform circumference of the lower part
of the column, cast in sonotube as testament to the fabrication
process, illustrates the demanding restrictions imposed on the
artist’s body by the density of clay. This, in part, is Cerqueira Leite’s
dispute against the notion that physical matter is subservient to the
will of mankind. The powerfully visceral configuration of material
eschews notions of space, time and traditional form; its gravitydefying structure is essentially a negative space made positive by the
artist’s actions. With Climb, Cerqueira Leite enacts an investigation
into limitations, the body and our relationship with matter. The
organic-looking mass is a challenge to formal definitions of figuration
and prompts a reconsideration of how our bodies might communicate
our histories if free from the constraints of physics.
The spirit of Cerqueira Leite's work aligns itself with post-minimalist
Juliana Cerqueira Leite was born in 1981 and is a Brazilian/American
concerns of the body in space. Her sculptures are visually striking and
artist. She studied sculpture in London at Chelsea College of Art and
tactile - often lending themselves to feminist readings due to their
then the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, where she graduated from the
historical influences and performative exuberance. However,
MFA Sculpture program in 2006 as recipient of the Kenneth Armitage
Cerqueira Leite maintains that her works do not have a specifically
Sculpture Prize. Cerqueira Leite lives and works in New York.
feminist agenda. Instead her work shows a struggle between narrative
and context that addresses universal human conditions through the
undeniably corporeal dimension to her work. Her sculptures reconcile
the "practice" of art making with the bodies of its creator and
spectators, portraying the contingency of means and end, input and
output.
Cerqueira Leite's work has been exhibited internationally since 2007
with recent group shows including the Saatchi Gallery, London; the
4th Marrakech Biennial; DUVE Gallery, Berlin; Art Public, Art Basel
Miami Beach; and recent solo shows at Galleria Lorcan O’Neil, Rome;
Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil; AIR Gallery, New York. Juliana has
been a NYFA/NYSCA funded artist in residence at Sculpture Space,
Monumental or delicately proportioned her works investigate how
Utica, and artist in residence at Foundation Armando Alvarez
time and physical action are captured by matter to generate form. Her
Penteado in São Paulo, Brazil and The Banff Arts Center, Canada. She
practice reveals a phenomenological approach to process by mapping
is recipient of the 2006 Kenneth Armitage Sculpture Prize and the
the experience of embodiment, how it is portrayed through figurative
2010-11 A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship in New York. She is also an active
representation and the history of sculpture. The objects, drawings,
curator with recent projects at the Dumbo Arts Center and St. Cecilia’s
photography, performance and video work that make up Leite's
Convent, both in Brooklyn, and at Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects in
practice continually reveal their past engagement with the artists'
London.
body. Emerging from an interest in how tactile, temporal and spatial
experience is stored in memory and the mental body-map, her work is
determined by specific action-schemes, repetitive choreography and
the properties of materials.
To make an enquiry please call the office on; 01243538449 or
alternatively, email; [email protected]