Bio
The artist was born and raised in Araguari, deep in the Brazilian hinterland. Currently residing in Dubai, she works between Brazil and the UAE. Her practice draws on the visual cultures and popular techniques of both “homes”.
Dorazio studied Visual Arts at the Guignard University of Art (Fundação Escola Guignard) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, later specializing in Ancient Italian Art Techniques at the Institute for Art and Restoration (Istituto per L’Arte e il Ristauro), Florence, Italy, and finally, in Germany at the Abendschule, Staedelschule. She studied art history under Rodrigo Naves, one of Brazil’s foremost art critics and scholars.
Dorazio’s practice centers on mixed-media works and installations. To skim through her myriad bodies of works is to glimpse a fascination with instability, shifting surfaces, the cosmic, the organic, the cellular, skin. While she remains faithful to a certain technical classicism (drawing, etching, the use of egg tempera), she also disrupts through material (x-ray fragments, chair caning) and scale. Upstream, her works are process-driven; on reception, they seem urgent and interactive.
The artist has exercised her skills as a curator in the exhibitions Existenzielle Korrespondenzen (Frankfurt am Main/São Paulo, 2016), Blue Connection (Frankfurt am Main/São Paulo/Sorocaba, 2010-11) and Schweizer 9 (Frankfurt am Main, 2008).
Statement
I work with layers, much as a geologist works with layers. Or how an anatomist works with layers. My layers peel away, to reveal. They overlap, narrating new formations. They cascade, they orbit, they dissipate. My work is born as fragments-disparate pieces that lean into each other, are stitched, glued, snapped, hung, fastened, tied or even hair-sprayed together. I am interested in layers beyond mere artistic technique. To me, layers are accumulated memory, history, time.
My practice is driven by the twin urges to deconstruct and to reconstruct. My artistic foundation is highly classical-etching, drawing, tempera painting. Yet I weld this classicism to a material experimentation through which I explore territories as vast as the teeming universe of microscopic organisms – cellular cavities, slithered tissue, amoeba-like, shape-shifting forms_- to the musculature of the human body-speedo-clad Olympic torsos splayed across diptychs_- and even the cosmos and the tentative cosmic order.
Education
2009 Arts, Abendschule, Staedelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1984 Ancient Italian Art Techniques, Istituto per L’Arte e il Ristauro, Florence, Italy
1982 Fine Arts, Fundação Escola Guignard, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Additional Courses
Etching, Evandro Carlos Jardim, São Paulo, Brazil
Art History, under the guidance of critic and scholar Rodrigo Naves
Drawing, Abendschule, Staedelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 Dan Galeria, Votorantin São Paulo, Brazil
2021 “Drawings & Editions”, XVA Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2018 “Symphoniae”, NYUAD Project Space, Abu Dhabi, UAE
2014 “Mysterium esse Revelandum,” Kunstverein Familie Montez, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2013 “Vita Organismus Cosmos e Eu,” Galeria Rabieh, São Paulo, Brazil
2012 “Vita Organismus und Kosmos,” Platform Sarai, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2006 Gallustheater, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2004 “Ausschnitte,” Galerie Artsforma, Stuttgart, Germany
1999 Espaço Cultural dos Correios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1998 “Mantra,” Capela do Morumbi, São Paulo, Brazil
1998 Escritorio de Arte Rosa Barbosa, São Paulo, Brazil
1997 Galeria Nara Roesler, Campos do Jordão, Brazil
1996 Centro Cultural São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
1992 Galeria de Arte Banco Central, Brasilia, Brazil
1988 Galeria de Arte Clube Athletico Paulistano, São Paulo, Brazil
1984 Galeria Paulo Campos Guimarães, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Awards
1983 Drawing, Fundação Escola Guignard, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Curatorial Projects
2016 Existenzielle Korrespondenzen
2010 Blue Connection
2008 Schweizer, 9
Public Collections
Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Sorocaba, Brazil
Centro Universitario Maria Antonia, São Paulo, Brazil
Kunstverein Familie Montez, Frankfurt am Main
Centro Cultural dos Correios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Group Exhibitions
2023 “Summer Allegory” Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2022 MFA NYUAD, Warehouse 421 Abu Dhabi, UAE
2020 “Wolf Tone”, curador: Ana Seaman, XVA Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2019 “Play”, Tashkeel, Dubai, UAE
2018 “Made in Tashkeel”, Tashkeel, Dubai, UAE
2016 “Existenzielle Korrespondenzen,” Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Sorocaba, Brazil
Ausstellungshalle, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2014 “Mapart, Symbiose der Kulturen,” Curator: Tereza de Arruda. Rosalux, Berlin, Germany
Brasilianische Botschaft, Berlin, Germany
2014 “Luminale,” S-Bahn Station Taunusanlage, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2013 “Montez in Exil,” Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Weimar, Germany
2013 “Parallelwelten,” Schulstr.1, Curator: Vroni Schwegler, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2012 “Ende Gut alles Gut”, Kunstverein Familie Montez, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2011 “Blue Connection,” Sala Libero Badaro’, São Paulo, Brazil
2011 Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Sorocaba, Brazil
2010 “Blue Connection,” Kunstverein Familie Montez, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2008 “Schweizer 9,” Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2007 “Gruppe Labyrinth,” Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2004 “Still Life Interiors Architecture and Landscapes,” Escritorio de Arte Rosa Barbosa, São Paulo, Brazil
2002 “Zeichnung,” Curator: Nicole Van den Plas, Gallustheater, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1998 “Seis Artistas Brasileiras,” Memorial da America Latina, São Paulo, Brazil
1995 “Bienal de Santos,” Santos, Brazil
1990 “Treze Artistas,” Centro Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
1990 Fundação Clovis Salgado, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
1988 “Coletiva de Gravura,” Museu de Arte Contemporanea, São Paulo, Brazil
1988 “Contempoarte,” Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil