Fine Arts

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Tracing Body and Gesture of Dance
(2014) Aguais, Camila
My moving body is the driving force of my painting and drawing. In my work, I seek to render dance by leaving a trace of my movement on the ground and constructing visual representations of movement. I read my work as maps of my own movement improvisation and dance instincts. They are maps of changes in quality of movement, position of the body, and direction in the dance. A different kind of movement or motion demands a different kind of gesture or representation on the surface of the canvas or paper. My work incorporates a wide array of methods and approaches to show different aspects of movement that are significant to me as a dancer. I use charcoal and acrylic paint on canvas and paper to combine both drawing and painting into one work. I sometimes focus more on the abstract motion of dance by painting in a more fleeting and dynamic way, and sometimes I focus more on negative space and shapes to explore composition. In whatever way my paintings and drawings emphasize a certain aspect of the dance, all remains open, gestural, and ambiguous. The surface of the painting or drawing becomes a kind of collage that illustrates elements of the dance: many small movements or larger gestures, a fragment of the body or the outline of an entire figure. These paintings and drawings serve as a broad view of parts of the body and of the gestures that create the movements in dance.