For the 2026 edition of ArtRio, Nara Roesler is pleased to present, as part of the SOLO project, a selection of new, unseen works by Flávia Ventura (b. 1991, Belo Horizonte, Brazil). In their research, Ventura investigates the body as a site for experimentation, drawing together questions of gender, sexuality, desire, nature, and transformation. Through painting, the artist creates narratives that move between reality and fantasy, figurative and abstraction, where different forms of existence meet and blur.
Grounded in a critical observation of mainstream pornography and the male gaze, Ventura shifts traditional regimes of representing the body and sexuality. Cis-male bodies, gestures of penetration, and figures transforming into animals, plants, objects, and landscapes emerge in the paintings to challenge boundaries and reimagine relationships between body, desire, and identity.
Among the featured works is the series Internal Landscapes (Paisagens internas), defined by intertwined bodies and forms in constant motion. Engaging in dialogue with ecofeminist perspectives and the thought of Donna Haraway, the series draws from the idea of “internal reforestation” to conceptualize the subject as permeable, relational, and in continuous transformation. Painting thus becomes a space where body, mind, and landscape intersect to give rise to new possibilities of existence.