Solange Pessoa

She is renowned for her multidisciplinary work and, since the 1980s, has explored themes that are deeply rooted in nature, memory, the body, spirituality, and life cycles, using such varied media as sculpture, painting, video, installations, and drawing. Beyond the dialogue between her artistic practice and Brazilian history, Solange Pessoa's work holds a special place in Brazilian contemporary art. It touches on numerous references as well as on the memory of colonial history and native cosmogonies.

The use of organic matter such as soil, leather, animal fat, feathers, hair, bones, and blood is characteristic of her work. This approach has allowed her to develop a unique, extremely sensorial, and visceral artistic language that alludes to an intimate relationship between humans, animals, plant life, and minerals. With her work, in which she transforms matter, she calls forth primitive, mythical, and ritual forms. By formalising her quest for a deeper relationship with the Earth, its non-human inhabitants, and the history of human origins with her powerful, meditative installations, the artist questions transformation, fertility, the organic, and the sacred.

The collection held by the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain includes several works by Solange Pessoa: Miracéus, 2004-2023, Mundao II 2019, and a series of drawings called Sonhíferas, 2004-2008. In 2022, she participated in the Les Vivants exhibition organised by the Fondation Cartier at Lille3000 and in the Siamo Foresta exhibition at the Triennale Milan. Miracéus is part of the Fondation Cartier's 2025 Exposition Générale.