Brazilian artist Sandra Cinto employs a rich vocabulary of dots, lines, contours, topography, symbols and art historical references to orchestrate lyrical landscapes that dance between reality and fantasy. With drawing as her point of departure, she imagines intricate, yet elemental environments that span oceans, canyons, storms and celestial vistas. A primary influence can be found in Japanese ukiyo-e prints, with a special focus on how to reconcile the iconic woodcut The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c.1830) by Hokusai Katsushika with the sprawling concrete jungle of her home in Sao Paulo. When (re)shaping churning seas into an urban context, Cinto conducts these sublime voyages in direct conversation with the surrounding architecture – incorporating the shapes, palette and spirit of buildings as both her canvas and muse. In the case of this work, she responds to the presiding grayscale of Zaha Hadid’s lobby as well as its cavernous expanse and glacial outcroppings. The result is a vast black-and-white canyon, where the viewer is invited to stand at the precipice of a floating ledge and “fly through” the rolling waves and glistening constellations that gather all around. In this flight Cinto hopes to convey both majesty and modesty at once – forging a place where we as viewers feel humbled by our minute place in the universe, as well as interconnected to its holistic pulse. There is no straight line or single direction here. Instead, we yield to a swirling, layered nexus where day and night co-exist, black meets white, and the structures built by hand and by nature tumble into and upon one another.
Throughout her career, Brazilian artist Sandra Cinto has developed a rich vocabulary of symbols and lines to create lyrical landscapes that swirl between fantasy and reality. Using drawing as her point of departure, Cinto evokes mesmerizing environments including turbulent seascapes, swirling rainstorms and celestial skies. For inspiration she draws upon Japanese ukiyo-e prints and Hokusai’s iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa, as well as European Romanticism and dramatic scenes such as Théodore Géricault’s 1818 painting The Raft of the Medusa, which depicts a famous sea disaster. Cinto also engages with her surrounding architecture on a frequent basis, immersing the viewer in a sea of waves to evoke the illusion of a weightless, spiraling universe. In so doing, she evokes stories of human hardship and redemption, as well as a larger metaphor for the human odyssey and our relationship with the environment.
At the CAC, she will summon these adventures for a new installation that spans the Lobby and Lobby Lounge. More specifically, an epic landscape will unfold across the two major columns in the Lobby – turning static pillars into dynamic portals for the eye and imagination to explore.

mpefm USA art press release