NOTES ON A PICTORICAL SURFACE — MARINA PEREZ SIMÃO: TUNING FORK
By Mario Gioia, art critic and independent curator
Letting your eyes wander over the play of straight and curved lines that shape the exhibition panels at Instituto Tomie Ohtake during Marina Perez Simão’s solo show is to dive into a synesthetic experience. Diapasão (“Tuning Fork”), the title of the exhibition, is particularly fitting, as it points to the musical resonances within the artist’s large-scale oil paintings. The result, after viewing around 80 works of varying scales, is deeply rewarding and offers insight into Simão’s process — an artist already acclaimed on the international circuit, represented by the powerhouse galleries Pace (U.S.) and Mendes Wood DM (Brazil), and with a monograph published by the prestigious Rizzoli.
The exhibition begins with canvases of diverse sizes arranged in the first section. It is interesting to observe how Simão once used different line structures to frame each work, along with less common materials such as iridescent pigment and a somewhat restrained approach to figuration.
The following section is crucial in Diapasão: the artist’s sketchbooks, which bring together studies inspired by key paintings from masters like Rubens (1577–1640) — Simão studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris —, charcoal drawings that suggest pathways toward larger panoramas, and precious watercolors on paper that reveal much about how her ambitious canvases take shape.
Like a chamber music recital, where smaller ensembles offer hints of the larger body of work to come, these watercolor sketches signal something essential: the painter’s strong phenomenological presence in connection with vast fields of color, alongside lines and allusions that are not literal representations of the surrounding world.
Simão advances through an abstraction nourished by the internal relationships of painting itself. At the same time, it’s impossible not to see rivers, lakes, skies, mountains, and polysemic streams within these wide, seductive panoramas that appeal to more than just the eye. Nature unfolds across the surfaces of her canvases more through suggestion than through a hyperrealistic palette.
“In this process, it becomes clear that the artist challenges the rationalist tendency to separate thought and corporeality, searching for fissures from within the very medium of painting — where she expands in pursuit of flavors, sounds, rhythms, and warmth,” writes curator Paulo Miyada in the critical text. From an exhibition design standpoint, there is wisdom in the intelligent use of the venue’s curved panels — one of the institution’s most distinctive features. “Her almost-landscapes operate precisely in this register. They never narrate or illustrate anything, but rather emerge as pictorial acts aimed at what language cannot grasp, thus awakening a previously dormant imagination,” writes critic Luisa Duarte about a 2022 solo show by the artist.
Until June of this year, an untitled fresco by Simão had been on continuous display for nearly four years at Casa Iramaia, one of Mendes Wood DM’s exhibition spaces in São Paulo. Measuring over 10 meters wide, it was installed on the ground floor of the modernist residence, surrounded by lush gardens. Built in the 1950s, the house was designed by Gregori Warchavchik (1896–1972), one of the leading figures of modern architecture in Brazil. Currently, the artist is presenting a massive mosaic — 105 m x 160 m — at the Bukhara Biennale in Uzbekistan, created in collaboration with local artist Bakhtiyar Babamuradov.
Witnessing the excellent moment of an artist in full swing on the international scene, through two very different exhibition formats — a solo show and a site-specific installation in a historic building — has been a privilege for the São Paulo audience. The Instituto Tomie Ohtake should also be commended for breaking the monotony of exhibition types during the period of the 36th São Paulo Biennial, which runs until next January.
Marina Perez Simão: Diapasão
Through October 19, 2025
Instituto Tomie Ohtake — Rua Coropé 88, São Paulo
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