Mônica Nador: Cubo Cor

For the first time ever, an exhibition establishes the relationship between Monica Nador’s authorial production and her wish to disseminate the knowledge she has acquired throughout her artistic trajectory.

In addition to her works on canvas and paper, the artist, together with members of JAMAC (Jardim Miriam Arte Clube – southern outskirts of the city of São Paulo), will use the stencil technique to carry out the installation Cubo Cor (Color Cube)—a work involving chromatic engagement in an action delimited by the institutional environment. 

The exhibition explores the nature of the artistic experimentation proposed by the artist to JAMAC’s members, alongside her authorial work, which is the foundation of her artistic output shared with the communities in which she works and with which she interacts.

To this end, the artist uses the stencil technique, which involves research, painting, and the final application to the surface to be taken – in this case, the walls and façade of the gallery. This kind of artistic expression has gained visibility and attracts even more collectors, as its versatility allows it to be produced not only in public and institutional, but also in private spaces.

In addition to that, nine works on paper, four works in acrylic on canvas, and a video documentary are also part of the program. These pieces are the result of the artist’s individual procedure in a collective production together with members of JAMAC.         

The whole production process, as well as Mônica Nador and JAMAC’s artistic journey, will be registered on a bilingual catalogue, together with Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and with editorial production of Thais Rivitti. A video documentary featuring the most significant moments of her shared authorship work will also be produced and presented during the exhibition.

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Having already attained critical acclaim for her work, from the late 1990s onwards Mônica Nador takes on new choices, lending new direction to her pictorial research. Her oeuvre then begins to work as a vehicle for other stages of perception, fostering a discussion on the role and application of art. Thus there emerge the activist art and the ideological commitment that are seen nowadays when she puts her worldview into practice by means of a participatory, cognitive, aesthetic, and social bias, in communities where the link with the arts circuit is missing, thus deeming the social function of art real. 

Graduating in the visual arts from the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP–SP), in 1983, Mônica Nador has her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC–USP). In 1994, she travels to the U.S. under a Mid-America scholarship and, as of 1996, she works on her master’s theme of Paredes Pinturas (Walls paintings), starting the work to which she will be devoted to the present day.
Following that, in 1999, in addition to winning the Vitae de Artes scholarship with that project, Nador develops the Paredes Pintadas (Painted walls) together with the people from Vila Rhodia, in São José dos Campos (SP). In 2008 and 2009, she travels throughout Brazil under the Comunidade Solidária (Solidary Community) program. Currently, Mônica Nador focuses her work on JAMAC (Jardim Miriam Arte Clube – southern outskirts of the city of São Paulo), which functions as a cultural and artistic experimentation environment for that community.

Recently, her work has been shown at the Pavilhão das Culturas Brasileiras, Parque do Ibirapuera, São Paulo (2011, Autoria Compartilhada), Estação Pinacoteca, São Paulo (2010, Pinturas de Exteriores), Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Japan (2008, Blooming Brazil-Japan), and Toulouse, France (2005, Mônica Nador and Jamac), as well as in the 7th Bienal Internacional de Arte SIART (2011), La Paz, Bolivia, the 41st Salón Nacional de Artistas de Colombia, Cali (2008), and the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006), Brazil.