Project 16
Doubts and Mountains - Carla Souto
Curated by Laura Olea López, as part of Art Nou 2020.
June 26th – July 31st 2020, Tangent Projects gallery.
How do you look at a mountain? The solemnity of a mountain has been imagined, told and read, dreamed, dismembered, deconstructed and transported. A body formed for the conquest, for the road, the expedition, the drift that allows the cave, the climb, the fall. Where does a mountain end? Where does it begin? A mountain is, above all, a gaze. It is a name given, it is a portrait. What does being a mountain imply? It is a figure that stands out, it is an outline that is observed, that is painted. Can a mountain grow? Its orography is framed, it is carved and pulverised, it is covered, filled and crossed. By owning the land that covers the mountain, do you really own a part of the mountain?
The exhibition "Doubts and Mountains" traversed by a brush or pen and unpainted canvases through the incomprehensible scale of a mountain. How to become a mountain? How to possess (a) mountain? The unresolved poems by Carla Souto, seeded throughout the relief of the exhibition space, question the limits of materiality in bread sculptures, with questions about the peaks, from drawing, installation, video.
What's under a mountain? Tangent Projects became a landscape, where the perceptions about mountains and limits, about shape and drawing, can be blurred with questions; a place where the alien, the fixed, the unknown, the immense is made malleable; a landscape for mountains of doubts.
By repeating the word mountain, does it lose its meaning?
Installation photos courtesy of Carla Souto, photos taken during the catalogue presentation courtesy of Rafael Arocha.
Carla Souto
A Coruña, 1994. Born in winter surrounded by chestnut trees. Almost spring.
After graduating in Fine Arts from the University of Vigo, Carla Souto continued her studies at the University of Porto specialising in Multimedia Art. At CEART-UDESC in Florianópolis she started working for, and from, the body in the area of Visual Arts, Performing Arts and Fashion. During her time studying for her Master's Degree in Sculpture at the University of Lisbon, she dedicated herself to studying volume.
Carla's work has been exhibited in Sant Andreu Contemporani (Barcelona), Sala Amadís (Madrid), ART Mustang (Elche), Galeria Monumental (Lisbon), Pazo da Cultura de Pontevedra and Museu da Imagem e Som de Florianópolis (Brazil) among other places where she has found herself. Among her awards, Souto has been awarded the VI Puénting Grant for artistic professionalization and INJUVE 2019 for production. Recently, Carla also participated in the Artist Residencies of the Biennial of Cerveira 2017 in Portugal and KH Messen in Norway; from the heat of the south to the melt of the northern spring.
Recently, Carla also participated in the Artist Residencies of the Biennial of Cerveira 2017 in Portugal and KH Messen in Norway; from the heat of the south to the melt of the northern spring.