Maria Nepomuceo: Trans at the Victoria Miro Gallery

Featuring a series of brightly coloured sculptural installations, Maria Nepomuceo explores the interconnectedness of individual objects and their surrounding environment. Using traditional Brazilian methods of rope weaving and straw braiding, as well as techniques of her own design, the Rio de Janeiro-based artist continues to expand her focus on biomorphic and organic development, through her signature motif: the spiral.

Redefining the space of the gallery, Nepomuceo joins pre-existing elements such as bricks, industrial piping and even the gallery walls and ceiling with organic forms made from straw, beads and hand-sewn rope. Draped from the ceiling, and attached to the wall, not only does this immersive web-like installation transform its surroundings, it also transforms that of the viewer.

Speaking about the exhibition, Nepomuceo argues “the system of thought that has developed within my practice follows the logic of the movement of the spiral.” Indeed, Trans charts the organic development of the artist’s work with spirals – that unmistakable shape that moves from the inside out as it seeks to forge a relationship with its surrounding space.

Since the early 2000s, Nepomuceo has worked with coils of coloured rope that she fixes into interweaving spirals. Becoming increasingly complex over the years, these biomorphic shapes have come to fill whole rooms, and sometimes even spilling out of gallery confines and into the surrounding landscape.

Totally immersive, Nepomuceo confounds our expectations of space; how we relate to both objects and our environment, in a nuanced, exciting and colourful way.

Tish Weinstock
Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London
© Maria Nepomuceno. Photography: Stephen White

Maria Nepomuceo: Trans is at the Victoria Miro Gallery from 13^th March until 17^th April 2014. For further information visit the gallery’s website here.