MATTER & DATA: Mermaid 20%

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This piece was originally created for the exhibition 'MATTER & DATA', curated by Kika Nicolela for objkt and presented at the Digital Art Mile in Basel, 10-16 June 2024.

Mermaid 20% by Monica Piloni Oil paint on PETG 30 x 12 x 12,5 cm 11.8 x 4.7 x 4.9 in 2024 10 ed.

Since time immemorial, fond of legends and myths, to the most contemporary, enchantment, attraction, and fascination are part of the mythological origin of these seductive demons, the Mermaids. I propose a revision of established narratives, through female voices, which, because of their committed viewpoint, offer a complexification to female characters – such as the archetype of the femme fatale, who, traditionally seen as an obstacle to the hero, here gains protagonism.

The extraordinary corporeal composition of her anti-heroine so crosses the distinctions between good and evil as to render them useless but far surpasses our perishability. The traditional sculpture issues of balance, symmetry, canon, and beauty are manipulated with procedures of mirroring and multiplication of parts and limbs, in the creation of beings impossible in the concrete plane of common life.

Mermaid 20% is a sculpture in scale of 20% of the life-size painted by hand in oil paint.

Artist bio:

When looking at her work as a whole, Piloni's interest in the representation of the female figure becomes noticeable, which began as a result of using her own body as a living model. The self-portrait that at first came about for convenience, over time symbolically became a portrait of all women because what she was expressing was a kind of collective narrative and, in fact, art is the great promoter of social change.

Most of her works have a common feature in their construction, mirroring. This resource distorts the body, creating another dimension in the perception of the human figure, making it as attractive as it is repulsive. She uses several languages, but mainly sculpture, whether physical, virtual, photographed, animated, mounted on a base or installation, in different materials such as bronze, marble, ceramics, fiberglass, and PETG, among others.

In her quest to reconceive the human, these predominantly female figures display the unconventional anatomy of their naked bodies as a peaceful protest to indicate a path towards the emergence of a post-human feminist turn that rejects the idea of the universalist posture of our species as the supposed measure of all things, criticizes the notion of human exceptionality, and the hierarchy of species.

The reflective or rotational symmetry used as an aesthetic resource in constructing these works creates new versions of bodies that break with the biological constitution and with the bilateral structure of human beings, making them non-functional. Despite being built exclusively with human parts, they can refer to creatures such as demons, mythological characters, or extraterrestrial beings, representing the ability to manifest through different identities and to change perspectives with fluidity.

Born in Curitiba, Brazil in 1978. She lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. She graduated from the Sculpture Course at the School of Music and Fine Arts of Paraná (EMBAP) in 2002.

Among her solo shows in Brazil, stand out “Dissident Symmetries”, Contemporary Museum Sorocaba (2022), "Humans, All Too Human" (2022) and "Ciclo (2019)", Zipper Gallery, São Paulo and the urban intervention “Ilegais”, at Rua da Aurora, Recife (2014). She participated in group shows in Brazil such as "Diversidade do Nosso Tempo", Figueiredo Ferraz Institute, Ribeirão Preto (2017), TRIO Bienal, National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA), Rio de Janeiro (2015), "Demasiado Pasolini", Mário de Andrade Library, São Paulo (2015), "New Brazilian Sculpture", Caixa Cultural, Rio de Janeiro (2011), "O Colecionador de Sonhos", Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto (2011), among others. Her works appear in important public and private Brazilian collections such as MAC Niterói, Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Cleusa Garfinkel and Bernardo Paz.