Untitled
Artist:
Sonia Gomes
(Brazilian, born 1948)
Date: 2007
Dimensions:
height: 82 5/8 in. (209.9 cm)
width: 39 in. (99.1 cm)
depth: 13 3/8 in. (34 cm)
Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, Purchased with The Brown Foundation Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund
Object number: 2019.12
Copyright: © Sonia Gomes
Provenance: Purchased directly from artist's dealer.
Label Text
With this visceral yet graceful wall hanging, Afro-Brazilian artist Sonia Gomes sews and twists fabrics and lace into organic forms that explore notions of memory and identity. This act of binding remnants of disparate cultures and materials is deeply rooted in Gomes's own story as an Afro-Brazilian growing up in the textile manufacturing town of Caetanópolis. It also references the collective history, memory, and identity of this marginalized group, which faces continual vulnerability and invisibility. For the artist, the personal is political: her “work is Black, feminine, and marginal.”
(Suzanne Weaver, 2020)
Con este tapiz intenso, pero elegante, la artista afrobrasileña Sonia Gomes cose y retuerce telas y encajes en formas orgánicas que exploran las nociones de la memoria y la identidad. Este acto de unir restos de culturas y materiales distintos está profundamente arraigado en la historia personal de Gomes como afrobrasileña que creció en la ciudad de manufactura textil de Caetanópolis, Brasil. También hace referencia a la historia colectiva, la memoria, y la identidad de este grupo social marginado, que enfrenta una continua vulnerabilidad e invisibilidad. Para la artista, lo personal es político; “su obra es Negra, femenina, y marginal."
(Suzanne Weaver, 2020)
For this monumental wall hanging from a body of work entitled Torção, (or Twist), Afro-Brazilian artist Sonia Gomes has meticulously stitched different fabrics and laces into convolutions. The work twists, spirals, and tapers in an organic, graceful, visceral way that recalls biological forms and sacred objects; collective and personal stories; and memories and experiences. Underlying Gomes’s aesthetic and conceptual choices is an intertwining of the history of art—artists such as Louise Bourgeois (American, born France, 1911–2010) and Eva Hesse (American, born Germany, 1936–1970) whose work makes deep connections to the physical, emotional, and psychological aspects of the body—and her own personal history. The artist’s maternal grandmother was an indigenous healer and midwife in Gomes’s hometown of Caetanópolis, an important center for the Brazilian textile industry and site of her father’s family’s textile manufacturing business.
(Suzanne Weaver 2019)
(Suzanne Weaver, 2020)
Con este tapiz intenso, pero elegante, la artista afrobrasileña Sonia Gomes cose y retuerce telas y encajes en formas orgánicas que exploran las nociones de la memoria y la identidad. Este acto de unir restos de culturas y materiales distintos está profundamente arraigado en la historia personal de Gomes como afrobrasileña que creció en la ciudad de manufactura textil de Caetanópolis, Brasil. También hace referencia a la historia colectiva, la memoria, y la identidad de este grupo social marginado, que enfrenta una continua vulnerabilidad e invisibilidad. Para la artista, lo personal es político; “su obra es Negra, femenina, y marginal."
(Suzanne Weaver, 2020)
For this monumental wall hanging from a body of work entitled Torção, (or Twist), Afro-Brazilian artist Sonia Gomes has meticulously stitched different fabrics and laces into convolutions. The work twists, spirals, and tapers in an organic, graceful, visceral way that recalls biological forms and sacred objects; collective and personal stories; and memories and experiences. Underlying Gomes’s aesthetic and conceptual choices is an intertwining of the history of art—artists such as Louise Bourgeois (American, born France, 1911–2010) and Eva Hesse (American, born Germany, 1936–1970) whose work makes deep connections to the physical, emotional, and psychological aspects of the body—and her own personal history. The artist’s maternal grandmother was an indigenous healer and midwife in Gomes’s hometown of Caetanópolis, an important center for the Brazilian textile industry and site of her father’s family’s textile manufacturing business.
(Suzanne Weaver 2019)
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
