“An artist can reach the illusion of an external reality, and obtain effects whose naturalness makes them similar to life in everything…” Carving Time, by Andrei Tarkovski
During the daily walk awake to observe nature and to be curious about familiar or unknown species. The look seeks different figures during the journey and the displacement becomes a routine of collection.
An imagined scientism arises. Nature’s objects are carried out of their habitat. Taken to the studio, they are placed, one by one, on a neutral black background. Displaced and isolates, they take on a new identity.
Briefly, I live with the forms, still fresh. Sometimes I shoot as soon as they arrive, just as they are. Others, I wait for them to wither, dry, rot. The construction of light takes place. From transformation, to sculpting them in time and in shape, to then freezing them through the photographic record. New beings travel from nature to my imagination. Awake memories dormant by time. Visions. Formless monsters, elegant dancers remain existing only for a few moments. Figures created, assembled, sculpted in the form of a unique and momentary physiology.
Understanding the time cycle that elapses. Transplanted and molded take on a new identity. The construction of the changeable light that enters through the window is inaugurated and changes tone and impact as the seasons go by. Sinuous bodies show through. As Octavio Paz tests, in O Arco e a Lira, … “revelation takes on a particular form of poetic experience”. Beings appear from manipulation to effective photographic revelation in the dive that converts raw matter.
The metalinguistic intention of what lights up, freezes, reveals. The imagery sensory experience expands to the intertwining of words. Poems emerge. Reflection on experience that shapes new creatures. Illusory moment that confuses the eye before triggering the trigger. “The revelation of our condition is equally a creation of ourselves”, (in The Arc and the Lyre).
“We don’t know to what extent the rotten people helped him in this obstinacy of seeing the sun”, says the poet Manoel de Barros in O Guardador de Águas. It is the dry ones that commune with the sweetened frescoes that lead to the investigation of contours and colors under different angles of light convergence and the workmanship that transfigures.
Marks of the passing of the moment resurrect the experiences that are also presented in small poems. The beauty that inhabited the youth challenges and the refuted and hidden wear and tear is exposed. The investigation that could only highlight the brands, points to a revaluation and re-signification of what deteriorates. Degradation reveals a new existence. Nature is not dead.
About Flavia Sampaio
Major in Communication. She worked as a copywriter in the newspapers A Folha de S. Paulo and Estado de S. Paulo. At IstóÉ magazine, she was editor of Foreign Affairs between 1988 and 1991. She worked at Agência Estado between 1991 and 1998, coordinating the news agency delivering texts and images to 200 newspapers all over Brazil. Participated in the editions of Grupo Estado’s Photo Yearbook, from 1990 to 1994.
From 1999 to 2017, worked and undertook in digital communication companies. She has focused on photography since 2018. Her images were showed at collective exhibitions Da Natureza – Galeria MH8, in São Paulo in February 2020 and Pittoresco during the 15th Paraty Photography Festival in 2019, both curated by Juan Esteves. Attended the Photographic Workshop Images without Borders – Stories of vulnerable populations taught by Leo Drumond and Natália Martino during and 9th Tiradentes Photography Festival in 2019, among several other workshops. Her photo was selected by 10th Tiradentes Photography Festival – Inside the Suspended Time / Preludio, in 2020. Her photo was selected by Festival de Fotografia of Paranapiacaba 2020. Carved Time was exhibited during Pequeno Festival da Fotografia, 2021 Keep photographing three active projects.