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.
