Rosana Paulino Debuts New“Plant Goddesses” In Paris Show

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino is presenting her inaugural solo exhibition in Paris, titled“Bloom in the Sunlight, Dream in the Moonlight,” at Mendes Wood DM's gallery in the French capital. The exhibition, which opened this week, introduces new plant goddesses into her ongoing“Senhora das Plantas” (Lady of the Plants) series, an Afro-botanical pantheon she initiated in 2019. This body of work elevates Black women to the status of goddesses in communion with nature, deliberately avoiding a romanticized perspective.

The exhibition features 16 paintings, with five on paper and 12 on canvas. These works demonstrate an expanded scale, a deeper exploration of color, and increasingly imaginative bodily poses for the figures. Paulino's artistic career, active since the 1990s, has long addressed the question,“What is it like to be a Black woman in Brazil?” Her earlier works, such as Parede da Memória (Memory Wall, 1994 ), explored the extensive gaps in Black Brazilian family trees, and Assentamento (Settlement, 2013 ), which featured three photographs of an enslaved Black woman printed on fabric, fragmented, and then stitched back together with added elements like a heart and a baby. These earlier photographic appropriations, originally from images by Auguste Stahl during the 1865–66 Thayer Expedition to Brazil, aimed to restore the woman's humanity and history from photographs originally intended to support claims of racial degeneration due to racial mixing.

A 2018 retrospective at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo showcased a series of Paulino's drawings from the early 2000s, which foreshadowed the psychological depth later seen in her plant goddesses. These earlier works, characterized by restless lines, depict a woman emerging from a cocoon in a ritual of transformation. Valéria Piccoli, cocurator of the Paris exhibition, stated,“Drawing is a central foundation of Rosana's practice; it sheds light on her imagination. Forms and ideas that she develops through drawing later acquire spatiality.” Piccoli also emphasized Paulino's pioneering role:“It was important to emphasize that she was the first voice in the 1990s to speak about the issue of Black women, but also to highlight that this was part of a much broader context of her interests and desires.”

Less than a year after her 2018 retrospective, Paulino unveiled the initial iteration of her botanical goddesses. These figures, rendered in earth tones and depicted nude, consciously avoid the hypersexualization of the Black female body, instead conveying wisdom and a connection with nature. The series originated from the plants in Paulino's studio, which she initially called“folhas” (leaves) before conceptualizing them as goddesses. Paulino explained in a recent studio interview that she“gradually realized that it couldn't be that simple: plants have a history, so I began to approach them more specifically,” noting her inability to find Black goddesses in books on the sacred feminine. She began with snake plants (Espada de Iansã in Portuguese) and then shifted her focus to the jatobá tree.

Works from the series have been featured in prominent international exhibitions, including the 2022 and 2026 Venice Biennales and the 2023 Bienal de São Paulo. For the São Paulo Bienal, Paulino transitioned from watercolor on paper to painting on canvas, enlarging her drawings to nearly 9 feet by 20 feet. She later introduced the mangrove into her pantheon, depicting goddesses with a serene demeanor, their roots firmly anchored in the earth, and a crown of leaves swaying with the wind.

This year, Paulino's exploration of Comigo Ninguém Pode (scientifically known as Dieffenbachia), a toxic plant associated with spiritual protection, inspired the title of the Brazilian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Diane Lima, the pavilion's curator, first encountered these works at Mendes Wood DM's New York space, where she saw Paulino's“day and night series” featuring paintings and drawings against a black background. Lima described her reaction:“I had never seen these works in person before. They convey a sense of mystery and magic; there is a certain aurality to them that truly moves us,” explaining her decision to include them in Venice. She added,“And it had that same impact in Italy. It is the exhibition's great amulet, and it's no coincidence that it is positioned right at the entrance.”

Paulino's painting process involves laying canvases flat, which she prepares with a gesso mixture to seal the weave, allowing them to behave more like paper when she applies watercolor and acrylic. This horizontal working method also carries conceptual significance. She stated,“I'm not going to reproduce the watercolor brushstrokes on canvas. But at the same time, this idea of vertical painting is very Western. My thing is to work on a table.”

Her plant goddesses have evolved to become more ambiguous as Paulino explores species that thrive in or offer shade, such as Comigo Ninguém Pode. Her research into plantas de poder (plants of power), used for spiritual protection in Afro-Brazilian religious traditions, has deepened, expanding the relationship between her plants and the cycles of day and night. The Paris exhibition will showcase“nocturnal” canvases featuring new goddesses, or new versions of existing ones, associated with angel's trumpet (Brugmansia). This genus, known for its vibrant flowers in white, salmon, purple, lilac, and pink, possesses a distinct luminosity that makes its petals appear translucent. Despite their alluring quality, these plants are extremely toxic; their ingestion, sometimes as a hallucinogen, can cause severe mental confusion and even death.

Paulino is drawn to this duality, remarking,“It's a plant with a certain weight to it, a size, a scent. But it's one of the most dangerous plants there is. Many people have lost their lives after ingesting teas containing it.” In her 2026 work Angel's trumpet, a figure is depicted seated on the ground with roots dangling from her knees, and branches bearing trumpet-shaped flowers emerge from her eyes. This goddess, despite her allure, exudes strength. An untitled 2026 work, featuring a bromeliad goddess, presents a different mood. The seated figure twists her torso in a yoga-like pose, with leaves emerging from her mouth as if she had been speaking animatedly. Her expression is gentle, and her short, tightly coiled hair, achieved with a self-made tool, resembles a branch with a sponge attached. Paulino commented,“You don't need long, flowing hair to be a goddess.” She concludes about her series,“My series 'Senhoras das Plantas' exists because woman is an archetype that the West cannot fully comprehend.”

Source: ARTnews

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