Analize Nicolini, In the Wounds I Reach, 2022

The wound is a sign that represents the body's susceptibility, a trauma, which reveals at the same time its weakness when being pierced and its possibility of healing, of regeneration.

Nas Feridas que Eu Alcanço (In the Wounds I Reach) is part of the artist's most recent set of works, carried out on her return to Brazil for the treatment of depressive symptoms from her artistic residency in Venice.

As an unidentified living being - who can represent all animals, human and non-human - the artist wears a red outfit that leaves only holes and wounds exposed. The red color, which looks like blood, holds unity, represents the skin. The holes present the animality, the internal/external communication. The wounds represent traumas - personal and collective, shared with other individuals, with their own species, with other species, with the planet itself and, finally, with the very existence that is exposed to human criticism and observed from the history of humanity, reveals space for care.

Losses, harassments and ruptures from the past join the most recent traumas experienced in the transfer to the Venetian Lagoon. The clashes of culture, of generations, of methods; the challenges imposed by a new environment; the eco-anxiety; entropy and the inevitability of the finitude of life, to the restlessness of embracing the artist's identity.

By licking her wounds like a dog in a public square, Analize presents her dedication to the search for healing to move on, overcome her traumas and be happy, despite the existential trauma that is characterized by the finitude of life. It’s a therapeutic process that will never end, since at the same time that they are capable of healing, wounds can also be reopened. It is also an eternal return - semantic and affective - of the artist to herself, which also refers to the circle of life.

Alert, warning and opportunity for action for the viewer - in the happening in the public square, the artist and the curators share with passers-by the knowledge about the artistic expression, its foundations and the artist's intentions. Analize follows her search for answers to her questions: Is art capable of transforming human behavior?

Nas Feridas que Eu Alcanço (In the Wounds I Reach) was performed in a public space for the first time at Praça Marechal Alberto Ferreira de Abreu, in front of the General Hospital of Curitiba, an institution managed by the Brazilian Army, on July 27, 2022. The artist sought to create with her simple and primitive gestures an extraordinary image that put passers-by in the neighborhood on alert - to awaken, thus, a call for individual and collective action of care for oneself, for others and for the world. Displacing art from museum spaces to everyday life has been present in the artist's poetics since 2019, as proposed in previous projects.

The artist's appearance dressed in red in a catsuit, facekini and cape immediately aroused the attention of the public in the square, who rested there during lunch hours and who usually frequent this space to relax and sunbathe. The daily routine in front of the Hospital usually consists of outsourced workers, military personnel, patients and visiting family members. People directly or indirectly involved with health recovery, therapies, treatments, medicines, care. In this sense, the performance broke with everyday life for this unusual figure, but it did not deal with a theme alien to the characters used to that space. It was special to notice how receptive and sensitive people were to the artist's actions.

Licking wounds is an instinctive response by some animals to relieve pain, irritation and aid in the healing process. Taking this lesson, Analize seeks in the lick the cure for internal and external processes, the relationship with herself and with the other, her personal and collective space. “In the end, we will all lick ourselves” was the phrase repeated aloud by the artist throughout the entire process, noting that there are wounds that, after all, we will not reach - and, therefore, we will only get out of this together.

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In The Wounds I Reach (2022)

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In the Wounds I Reach, 2022

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