Lavish portal of the ephemeral I Laeticia Mello I 2013

Stoa, the exhibition in miaumiau by the artists Luciana Rondolini & Diana Drake, presents an attractive language of its own and with neat aesthetic characteristics. Accompanied by a beautiful sharp and ancient text that surrounds us in the stench of death and hidden wonders, it achieves through the stoicism of both productions, to transmit the transience of everything that surrounds us and provides.

In the first room, there is a diaphanous collection of Drake pieces, ropes embellished with crystals and silicon sit spirally remembering some landscape of dark underground caves. Next to a cerulean wall cosmos, it is enclosed in tiny, the universe contained in a small glass on a wall stool. Opposite, and in mirror, a delicate engraving that presents the same chalice, this time, empty of content. When looking to the right, a wardrobe of crystallized doors opens in one, two and three scenes, which the visitor must not fail to open to find the secret inside.

The light captured on each of Diana Drake’s wonderful objects, allows us to see millions of suspended crystal powders, perhaps part of the inevitable process of corrosion of these quartz that the artist makes grow to let them fade free into the environment.

A similar concept involves the embellished fruits that Luciana Rondolini has been developing as her own iconography for several years. Located in the second room of the gallery, they perch on luxurious mirrored frames as if through sumptuousness it was still possible for them to stop time and its subsequent putrefaction.

A trodden and rotten banana cross covered in sumptuous fantasy gems exudes the stench of the actual process of the works; long and subject to maturation and subsequent fermentation.

But what perhaps catches the most attention in this room, are the sublime drawings of colossal Lady Gaga, which completely occupy the height of the room. The production time, detail and finishing of the pieces is notorious. For the first time Rondolini, accompanies the pop effigy with wide and strict details on life-size magazine covers, approaching consumerism from a warrior lady, à la mode and devoted to religion.

Absent of face and dressed with diamonds of all possible dimensions, the holy maiden stands once more for eternity.

Stoa. Luciana Rondolini, Diana Drake in Miau Miau, from Saturday, July 27, 2013 to Tuesday, August 27, 2013.

© Luciana Rondolini 2021

© Luciana Rondolini 2021