
Unveiling, Embody, 2019

Nude, Embody, 2019

Immersed, Embody, 2019

Breath, Embody, 2019

Roots, Embody, 2019

Wanderlust, Embody, 2019

Verticality, Embody, 2019

Fundaments, Embody, 2019

Playground, Embody, 2019

Wanderlust, Embody, 2019

Mystery, Embody, 2019

Winterlight, Embody, 2019

Openess, Embody, 2019

Flowers, Embody, 2019

Window, Embody, 2019

Sturm & Drang, Embody, 2019

Introspection, Embody, 2019

Shoulder, Embody, 2019

Light, Embody, 2019

Presence, Embody, 2019



From the front I am, from the back I sustain. My face, my hands, my gestures give me so many possibilities to express my joy, my happiness, my sadness, my pain. My back remains stoic, a guest of the present moment, a giant of flesh that silently accumulates the memories of a lifetime. Embody reads like the bedside notes, revealing a play between shadow and light, intimacy and revelation, present and absence. In Embody (2019) Cristina Dias de Magalhães wanders through space and time to make the body and its environment visually and emotionally interact. By superimposing her self-portraits of the back on interiors and exteriors selected from her own archives, she re-connects with the emotions experienced in these places and their after-effects. The places inhabited by this ephemeral presence transform into a reverberation of a period of life, speaking of the artist’s origins, the discovery of her body, her emancipation, the desire to seduce, and finally the becoming a woman. Embody is a testimony on the search for the kairos, the propitious moment, when the body mixes with its environment to make us realize that we only fully exist through our immediate surroundings. Through a skilful interplay between lightness and depth, instantaneity and perpetuity, presence and absence of the identity of the back, the artist invites the observer to a subconscious introspection that contributes to the development of the being.
