De Almeida Guarino, Inhale/Exhale, 2024, range of materials.
De Almeida Guarino’s Inhale/Exhale explores the juxtaposition between the Earth’s inwards and outwards: inwards by digging the soil to find copper; looking at imagery of copper mines in Australia and Latin America, where the artist grew up, and outwards through trees - in particular bark from gum trees which the artist encounters in her daily walks, on Gadigal land. The bright and bold colour scheme leaves no room for the audience to look away - serving as a metaphor for the complexity of our current patriarchal Western system which heavily relies on commodities coming from the Global South and unearthing the Earth. The artist uses a range of materials to reiterate and translate those imageries of mines and bark - natural dyes such as madder, ochres, turmeric, coffee on different surfaces such as found wood, secondhand cotton, Australian wool and silk.
Artist of interest are Jahnne Pasco-White, Vivian Suter, Richard Long, Bonita Ely and Francis Alys.
Carolina de Almeida Guarino was born and raised in Indaiatuba, Brazil, and has been residing on Gadigal Land since 2014. She has exhibited at MADA Gallery in Narrm and is completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Environmental Humanities at UNSW.
Image Courtesy – The Artist
Instagram - @carulininha