Exhibitions
The visual metaphor of Marina Pérez Simão at the Tomie Ohtake Institute
The tuning fork is the instrument that marks the pitch in musical tuning and functions as a visual metaphor in artwork. Artist Jordi Benito once used it to create some of his work, and now Marina Pérez Simão's work titled Diapasão ( The Tuning Fork) is showing her new exhibition at the Tomie Ohtake Institute in São Paulo, from August 15 to October 19.
The artist explores sensory frequencies through painting and utilizes the juxtaposition and accumulation of memories and images, exploring the emotional and environmental through mixed media such as oil, watercolor, collage, and drawing. The Vitória-based artist's work plays with abstraction, light, and internal and external landscapes, evoking memory and visual experience.
Recognized as one of the foremost colorists of her generation, the artist has developed a deeply sensorial body of work characterized by an intense exploration of light, color, texture, and movement. Through a vibrant palette and carefully structured compositions, her work achieves an immediate visual and emotional impact, appealing not only to the eye but also to a broader, almost tactile and atmospheric perception of the environment depicted.
Her approach to art is distinctly synesthetic: colors seem to emit sounds, textures evoke temperatures, and the movements suggested by her strokes awaken physical and emotional sensations in the viewer. This fusion of the senses, present throughout her output, gives rise to works that transcend the purely visual to become immersive experiences.
In this sense, the exhibition offers much more than a passive contemplation of the works: it is an invitation to immerse oneself in a chromatic and perceptual universe, where each visitor can establish an intimate and personal relationship with the pieces on display. Through this profound interaction, the exhibition becomes a space of discovery and sensorial connection, where art and viewer meet on a shared plane of emotion and visual resonance.
Marina Pérez Simão occupies the largest exhibition hall at the Ohtake Institute, and this exhibition transports the viewer and their gaze through the last fifteen years of her production, especially the transition from drawing and studio watercolors to the large oil paintings created recently between 2024 and 2025.
Although at first glance these large paintings may appear to be the result of spontaneous, gestural execution, they are actually the result of a meticulous and deliberate process. Behind each fluid brushstroke lies a complex dynamic that combines planning, experimentation, and the careful articulation of formal elements.
The artist's creative process unfolds in multiple stages, beginning with the creation of dozens of preliminary watercolor studies. In these sketches, she explores different compositional possibilities, explores color ranges, and experiments with the construction of atmospheres, thus refining the visual and emotional structure of each final work.
This preparatory stage, far from limiting the spontaneity of the pictorial gesture, allows the fluidity and expressiveness of the stroke to emerge from a deep understanding of form and color, giving the final work a restrained force that balances freedom and intention.
