MERCEDES LACHMANN

“Flecha” [Arrow] is Mercedes Lachmann’s first solo exhibition in Portugal, which covers her most recent production. The curatorial approach takes the arrow as a material and conceptual element that interconnects stories, places, and times, also dialoguing with the archaeological collection of the Abade Pedrosa Municipal Museum. An object which provides subsistence, protection, and attack, the arrow is present in countless contexts and people. The selected works point to enchantment, regeneration, interdependence, sensoriality, and suspension.

Curated by Álvaro Moreira and Cristiana Tejo.

Mercedes Lachmann was born in 1964, in Rio de Janeiro, where she currently lives and works. She graduated in Visual Communication from PUC-RJ in 1986, and attended the Parque Lage Visual Arts School, participating in study groups in art and philosophy and in workshops with artists and curators. In 2018 she was nominated for the Pipa Prize, one of the most important visual arts awards in Brazil. In 2020, she joined the artist collective @BoraGirls, which supports women in situations of vulnerability, through actions of communication through art. The artist has presented numerous exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, and her work is present in several private collections. Her research is mainly developed in the fields of sculpture, installation, and video, favoring the use of natural materials. Her work touches on environmental issues and some of her pieces approach environmental art and Land Art. Water was a milestone in her poetics, addressing issues such as the ephemerality of life, the transformations of matter, and the scarcity of natural resources. In recent years, Mercedes has started to use plants, and medicinal and aromatic herbs in her works, where she combines different intensities, qualities, and potencies, creating a sensitive alchemy. With the plants, new materials have been incorporated into her production such as wood, leaves, seeds, metals, meeting a thought of integration, collaboration, and proliferation of forms and synesthetic experiences, as we observe in the expression of nature.