Sonâmbulos / Sleepwalkers, 2020
Exposição Horizonte Imperfeito, Clube do Desenho, Porto, 2021
Exhibition Imperfect Horizon, Clube do Desenho, Oporto, 2021
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Sleepwalkers, 2020-21 65x50 each Pencil on Paper The lockdown period, which started in March 2020 due to the SARS-CoV-2 2 pandemic, replaced social and professional relations with teleworking sessions. Where once there were a variety of gestures, actions, movements, and relationships, now people have reduced their actions to computer communication. For months, human activity was conditioned to a monotony of gestures, events, and spaces. In this context, the series of drawings "Sleepwalkers" was made with a graphic gray surface, resulting from traces of graphite, according to a mechanical and automated development. These drawings are executed during activities such as meetings or conversations, the result in inattention, and a state of mental absence. Initially, these drawings were designated by the title "Grey", in a direct reference to the color and their monotonous appearance. But after, the title became "Sleepwalkers". These pictures are like doodles, illustrating a process of 'sleepwalking' summarized in mechanical actions, and unconscious gestures. In this way, the surface grows without a specific goal, unaware of its own making. The series and repetition increase the continuous character of the process, where sleepwalking depersonalizes each isolated element, reducing it to its peripheral and unconscious condition. Indeed, each drawing is a Sleepwalker "who, during sleep, rises, walks and talks" or rather "acts mechanically, automatically, without demonstrating awareness or understanding of his actions". (Houaiss Dictionary of Portuguese language). The graphic surface spreads with small variations in tone, and the swift in pencil directions can be sensed, such as waves or changes in wind direction. The shaded layers depict a uniform everyday life, marked by events without real identity. As a disruptive element, in each drawing, Cláudia Amandi produces a small hole, like an observation opening for another drawing. Thus, each hole is the place from which one can see the space formed, grey and uniform, a surveillance spot or a possible gaze to this undifferentiated daily life. Cláudia Amandi created these drawings during the lockdown in 2020/21, evoking a continuous state where actions are dissolved in an indistinct time and also, where activities resemble loose concrete and objective qualities. These almost anonymous surfaces are pictures evoking the neutrality of similar days, the monotony of actions, and the distance imposed in relationships and life. (I) |