Maria José Oliveira

Most of Maria José Oliveira’s works are composed of natural and organic materials, several of which are impermanent or degradable, such as coffee, plant residues, earth, milk, dried leaves and stems, eggs, vegetable resin, stones, bread dough, baker’s oven ash, lime, raw and baked clay, paraffin, oxidised iron and handmade paper. Her palette is reduced and sober, varying from neutral colours to red and golden ochres, the latter accentuated by the occasional application of gold leaf.

Each material assumes a certain symbolic and esoteric value in the whole, formalised through performative and ritualistic practices such as tearing, binding, baking, weaving, joining, opening, cutting and drying.

Modelled on, for and by the body, as prostheses or simulacra of body parts, her precious and almost mystical objects are as eccentric, irregular and imperfect as the human body itself.