This billingual publication in Portugese and English of 60 free-from-order pages in a black box by Brazilian artist Renata Pelegrini was designed in 2022 and its title “TENTACULAR” was borrowed to name the artist’s solo show in Casa do Olhar Luiz Sacilott in São Paulo, Brazil, from May to July in 2023. Repetition of the squared pages have been inspired by the Fibonacci sequence (in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones) noticed in shell pieces found on sand. Paintings, drawings, weavings, sculptures, sketches, notes and found objects all mixed in a fluid flow of questions and search. Fascination with orchid roots and their wisdom, with gestures and movement, playing with lamp light and shadows and letting go of the dominion of the known. “Her gaze traverses light and dark and creates things – such as tray of bones or a table – on which reinvented memories of the arc of existence itself are deposited,” writes psychoanalyst, author and art critic Bianca Coutinho Dias in an introduction essay. “They are arteries or corals, transmutations, old knitting needles, brushes, trunks of plants, all in a coexistence that combines inside and outside, natural and instinctual bodies, poetry and science.”

“In the dark of my workspace, the investigation through light and shadow, brings the unknown from the seabed and soil into the studio. In there, both, the natural forms of the plants, as well as the ceramic shapes inspired by this organic life, open for research.”

Renata Pelegrini “TENTACULAR”. Published by Ipsis Gráfica in 2023 in 250 copies. One of the last copies (247) was donated by Renata Pelegrini and sent from Brazil to the library ❤️

Photos by Anna Iltnere / Sea Library