When slicing, disassembling, and/or intertwining photographic images, Clara de Cápua produces undefined compositions because in the gaps, we can assume images, adding our own repertoire to a hypothetical empty space. However, on the gallery wall, it is not a perforated space, but rather a white space to be filled with our particular imagination.

​

And such exercise of filling a blank space with memories and imaginations is explored on a succession of papers in the series "there is someone in my mirror and it’s not me," which gives the title to the exhibition. These drawings are materializations of the artist's memories, especially about her own features, without the aid of a mirror or a portrait during the process, resulting in ghostly faces that simultaneously resemble and distinguish themselves, approaching and distancing themselves from the image of the artist in undoubtedly morbid compositions.

​

In general, the elaborated creations emphasize an exercise of indefiniteness because, on the one hand, we can imagine the disappearance of bodies, but on the other hand, we can also fantasize the opposite by projecting infinite specters onto each gap. And between the gaps generated by cuts and the traces produced by graphite, Clara uses strangeness as a powerful strategy, with evident awareness - even if the paths indicated are unknown - that strangeness can nourish the political imagination and diversify modes of action. And such strangeness can trigger zones of discomfort, bring to light deeply rooted problems that need and must be exposed and debated: issues of gender, class, and generational issues.

​

This exhibition does not necessarily bring a presumed affirmation of something that makes sense or not because it confirms the making of sense itself, that is, sense as a making.

​

Tales Frey

Curator