DIAS DE TROVOADA by Maria Melancolia

The individual exhibition DIAS DE TROVOADA (DAYS OF THUNDER) by Maria Melancolia, will open on April 14, from 6 pm. to 8.30 pm. The exhibition will remain open until May 5 and the admission is free.

This is the first solo exhibition of Maria Melancolia.

DIAS DE TROVOADA aims to bring light to the darkness that sometimes invades our minds. No guilt, no fears and no anxieties, because life is not only the brightness of summer days that we observe virtually. With a focus on the temporal limitation that it is only days that never reach months or years.

The artist translates this awareness through collages that represent different layers of overlapping emotions that guide us through the fog of our life or the artist’s life. We are guided by real or fictional characters whose narrative unfolds in a tragic-comic surrealism.

The pieces combine various materials, including photographs, lace, and magazine clippings that contrast with the letter symbols. Words cut from newspapers proclaim strong and dark messages. The images and letters pasted into each work have a certain bipolarity, but tell a single story.

It’s a reflection on the complexity of human emotions and the need to weather the storm.

BIOGRAPHY

Maria Melancolia was born in Luanda in 1979, but moved to Portugal at a young age and now lives and works in Braga. With a background in communication, the artist decided to extend the dialog to the image.

She began her artistic activity with analog collage and drawing techniques, and in the last 10 years adopted digital collage. In this exhibition, the artist goes back in time and returns to manual research, for the best images in magazines and getting her hands on scissors and glue. Her creative process explores themes of self-acceptance, the absurd, surrealism and melancholy, always inspired by the female figure.

She participated in several group exhibitions in Guimarães, Lisbon and Milan.

Her collages can be seen in small publications, on posters, on book, magazine and album covers, and in online content for musicians, artists and beauty brands.

The artist has already created illustrations in Portugal, for Vogue, Gisela João, Inouie beauty, Festival Multiplex and Ivy Music. Internationally for Vanity Fair (Italy), Marie Claire (Mexico) and regularly for the magazines Época Negócios and Pequenas Empresas & Grandes Negócios (Brazil).

Parallel to her artistic work, she works in the areas of production and external relations, at Theatro Circo, in Braga.