Sikkema Jenkins & Co. is pleased to present Vital, a solo exhibition of new work by Maria Nepomuceno presented in Gallery II. This exhibition marks the artist’s first solo show with the gallery.

Employing a wide range of materials including colorful ropes and beads, ceramics, gourds, wood, woven carnauba (palm) straw, and industrial finished resin forms, Maria Nepomuceno creates sculptures and installations that evoke organic structures. The six sculptures on view in the exhibition are presented here alongside framed wall works that lie on the border between collage, painting, and sculpture.

Craftsmanship has a strong presence in Nepomuceno’s work through techniques inspired by Brazilian craft traditions or partnership with a group of Brazilian women who weave carnauba straw. The artist also sees craft as a way of “trying to hold the time with my hands so it does not go so fast.” The time retained in the works is both the duration of its making as well as chronological as it relates to the artist’s origins. The artist states that she is “the fruit of a great mix of races, something very common in Brazil. And one of my intentions is to have these works reflect the richness of my home country.”

Maria Nepomuceno was born in 1976 in Rio de Janeiro, where she continues to live and work. She began studying fine art and theory at the age of 14 at the School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage, in Rio de Janeiro. She continued her studies in industrial design and scenography at the UNIRio Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at venues including Stavanger Art Museum in Stavanger, Norway (2017); Barbican Centre in London (2016); Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro (2013); and Turner Contemporary in Margate, UK (2012).