brígida baltar

The work of Brígida Baltar (b. 1959, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - d. 2022, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) spanned across a wide range of mediums, including video, performance, installation, drawing, and sculpture. Baltar's artistic production began in the 1990s with small poetic gestures, developed in her studio-home in Botafogo, a neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. During nearly ten years, the artist collected items of domestic life such as the water dripping through small cracks on her roof, or dust falling from the bricks of her walls. This act of collecting subsequently expanded into the outside world, giving rise to the Coletas series, an attempt at capturing mist, dew and ocean breeze—an ultimately impossible or rather, intangible task. In the meantime, she also created a variety of works using the collected brick dust, ranging from landscape drawings on paper, or ornate compositions drawn directly on walls or floors, to sculptures, proposing pieces that uniquely intertwined her past and present practice until her passing.

The artist recurrently based her artistic process in fabulation, intertwining and often embodying human and animal characteristics as a tool to redefine our relationship with nature. This is notably visible in works such as Ghost Crab, Bee House and Voar. Her later work with ceramic engages with the relationship between body and shelter, one of the main themes in her work, proposing shapes of sea shells that merge with those of the human body. In her late years, the artist focused on embroidery, producing works related to her body and her skin, re-affirimg her career-long ability to use her personal experience to address philosophical concepts and sensations. 

Her recent solo shows include: Brígida Baltar (1959-2022): To Make the World a Shelter, at Nara Roesler (2023), in New York, USA; Brígida Baltar: Filmes, at Espaço Cultural BNDES (2019), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; A carne do mar, at Galeria Nara Roesler (2018), in São Paulo, Brazil; SAM Art Project (2012), in Paris, France; and O amor do pássaro rebelde, at Cavalariças (2012), Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (EAV Parque Lage), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work featured in recent group shows, such as: The Fold in the Horizon, at Nara Roesler (2022), in New York, USA; 12th Mercosul Biennial, Brazil (2020); I Remember Earth, at Magasin des Horizons (2019), Centre d'arts et de cultures, in Grenoble, France; Studiolo XXI – Desenhos e afinidades, at Fundação Eugénio de Almeida Centro de Arte e Cultura (2019), in Évora, Portugal; Abstracción textil \ Textile Abstraction, at Galería Casas Riegner (2018), in Bogotá, Colombia; Neither-nor: Abstract Landscapes, Portraits and Still Lives, at Terra-Art Project (2017), in London, UK; Constructing Views: Experimental Film and Video from Brazil, at New Museum (2010), in New York, USA. Her work is part of important collections, such as: Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH), Houston, USA; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, among others.