“They did not know it was impossible, so they did.”
This magnificent quotation by Mark Twain reflects the work of Carla Chaim, a Brazilian artist, portraying the question of the physical and social limits of human in society.
Graphic projects such as Carla Chaim’s performances are meticulously calculated. Her absent or present body of the work is the central instrument of her artistic process. The movements of the artist in her various interventions such as “Espinha de Peixe” (2016), referring to the Ishikawa diagram, the diagram of causes and effects, are slight and even poetic. The invisible lines fill the space and define new possibilities of occupation in front of the obstacles.
Always accurately, Carla runs on graph paper with a delicate and methodical gesture, elegant geometric shapes as in her 2013 work. On a squared paper folded, two black square seems to move like a dance. They are the mirror of one and the other. The black mark is your signature. No color, no artifice appears. With a thick line, Carla draws lines, rectangles, triangles or gigantic circles on paper, walls or floors, which penetrate and cover the space, indicating its passage. This overflow attracts the viewer who can only be captured and become an actor in the play. With the head lowered or the body inclined to come into contact with the work, the viewer lives a physical and emotional moment. Contemplation, the unconventional experience of space are the almost spiritual consequences of the work of Carla Chaim.
Carla’s performances and graphic work illuminate the influence of the environment on our behaviors and thoughts. Reaching its limits? Play with its limits? The plastic work of this artist rejects drives a redefinition of the relationship between the body and the physical and social space. From her first productions like “Manequim / Escutura” in 2007 to her last exhibition “White Flag” in London, Carla Chaim dislocates daily and intimate experiences. You leave your comfort zone, relaxed and comfortable. Carla Chaim explores the unknown and unusual. The works of this young artist are a perpetual search for these virtual and contextual barriers that evolve in the course of a person’s life. Perhaps the folds of paper or the “broken” forms are just representations or graphic vestiges of that moment in which each one finds a little of his freedom to break this repetitive circle of the routine and stimulating again the creative spirit.
