Carolina Madeira
"Discovered / Uncovered Saint" is Ilka Benez Brandão Lemos' installation at ArteEspaço Gallery, in Araçatuba. The show may seem, at first, an immediate result of observations and conclusions that the artist has been making since the beginning of 1994, through research with different materials as a line of her drawing.
Looking at the installation project, though, one can clearly perceive a new "look" at yet another path full of possibilities that Ilka finds in her work.
The production of these artworks was influenced by the artist’s attendance of the 3:00 PM mass on Fridays at the Cathedral and the blessing of the Eucharist. Observing the faces in the crowd that invades the church, she highlighted the simplicity of the true faith in a photographic sequence. Ilka makes with features marked by pain and hopelessness, after the blessing, reappear enlightened.
The title involves the past, bringing the Holy Week with its images covered in purple, and, after their discovery, the reappearance of life, movement, and joy.
The installation appropriates the artist's personal poetic search with the religious search of these anonymous faces, resulting in the same poetic exercise of depth.
