"The works from the beginning to the end of Josely Carvalho’s exhibition Teto de Vidro / Glass Ceiling complete a cycle of the artist’s aesthetic, plastic, and sensorial research as well as her recent life experiences.

The book-object Estilhaços / Shards came out of personal memories and short writings on the image of broken wine glasses. Interpretations of the texts led to the creation by the artist, in partnership with Givaudan do Brasil, of the smells Affection, Illusion, Persistence, Emptiness, Pleasure and Absence. [...]

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  From the artist’s research on glass and shards and reflection on their possible meanings, both personal and collective, arose experimentation in the Urban Glass Studio, Brooklyn, in New York, where sand, extreme heat from fire, and energy propelled by bellows gave form to sculptures recomposing the glass shards.

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  The energy from this movement gave rise to vessels of ambiguous form, which, existing as transparent barriers contain and allow to escape through their openings the smells  Anoxia, Pepper Ball, Dust, Barricade, Lacrimae  and Queen of the Night (Cestrum Nocturnum) - the feminine element, the flower. For the artist, these smells joined together may represent that of Resilience, which, however, was not created like the others because the artist made a point of leaving them open, through the infinite and particular ways that each one of us has of interpreting them through the nose. 
The video Memória do vidro / Memoryof Glass, which reveals the plasticity of fire in the
process of manufacturing glass,
completes the installation.[...]"

Laura Abreu, curator

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Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. (03/03 - 05/06/2018).

Photo credit: João Caldas