Nara Roesler São Paulo is pleased to present Língua d’Água, Maria Klabin’s (1978, Rio de Janeiro) first solo exhibition in the city. Curated by Galciani Neves, the exhibition features new and recent works, including oil paintings on canvas, linen, and tracing paper, as well as drawings in ink, charcoal, gouache, and oil stick. The selection spans a wide range of scales, from small works measuring approximately twenty centimeters to canvases reaching three meters in length, alongside drawings taken from her notebooks, offering visitors a broad overview of her creative process.
The exhibition’s title arises from a phrase the artist shared with the curator: “The brush is like a tongue that licks the canvas, bringing echoes from somewhere,” reflecting the sensorial and intuitive character that guides Klabin’s pictorial practice. In her curatorial text, Neves notes: “Maria’s paintings point to the whirlpools of perception, revealing what may emerge when we choose to inhabit the mysteries of things, looking at them up close and from varying distances.”
The artist explains that her works often stem from her immediate surroundings, close individuals, objects, plants, and moments of rest, revealing scenes of intimacy and surrender. “I like to think of my studio as a space where I can feel safe enough to be vulnerable. There is a vulnerability inherent to painting; it takes trust to take that leap,” she states.
The landscapes featured in the exhibition also emerge from daily coexistence. Objects, plants, and photographs serve as points of departure for exploring moods, movements, and intuitive compositions. “I am always in a constant and silent hunt for things that are just a little more than themselves,” the artist notes.
More than forty drawings are included in the exhibition, and the artist highlights the centrality of drawing in her practice: “I draw all the time. Sometimes I feel that my painting is much more like drawing, because I’m more connected to line and gesture than to color relationships.”
The exhibition also features the painting Gal (2023), a work that marks a formal shift in her production, integrating allegorical and dreamlike elements that become even more evident in her recent paintings. Additionally, three quick portraits of Alberto Giacometti will be presented, developed from a video in which the artist identified the sculptor in a moment of rare vulnerability and focus, a recurring theme in her research.
During the exhibition, in February 2026, the first book dedicated to the artist’s trajectory will be launched: Maria K. (2025, Nara Roesler Books). The bilingual publication features 114 pages, a hardcover format, and new texts by Priscyla Gomes, Pollyana Quintella, as well as an introduction by Luis Pérez-Oramas.