Íris Helena

A multidisciplinary artist graduated in Visual Arts from the Universidade Federal da Paraíba. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Poetics and is currently doing her pHd in Displacements and Spatialities in Contemporary Art at Universidade de Brasília. Her research focuses on a critical, philosophical and poetic investigation of urban landscapes. The artist incorporates images of the city within the surfaces / supports she chooses to materialize them. The precarious and ordinary supports are often removed from their daily consumption and enable the construction / reconstruction of memory linked to risk, instability and, above all, to the desire for erasure.

Her latest solo show Práticas de Arquivo Morto – Notas was curated by Agnaldo Farias and presented in 2019 at Caixa Cultural São Paulo, Brazil. She has also participated in important collective shows in the last years, such as: 33th Centro Cultural São Paulo Exhibitions Programme, São Paulo, SP, Brazil (2023); “Lá, onde estiver”, Caixa Cultural Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil (2022); At Memory’s Edge, Fundación Pablo Atchugarry Miami, Miami, USA (2022); 1st Contemporary Art National Salon, Goiânia, GO, Brazil (2021); Zonas Limítrofes, Instituto Goethe Salvador, BA (2020); Estratégias do Feminino, Farol Santander, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil (2019); among others.

Íris has taken part in several artist residencies in Brazil and abroad, such as a residency in Frankfurt, Germany, commissioned by the Brazilian Foreign Affairs Ministry during the Year of Germany in Brazil (2013), and most recently, the Vila Sul Residency Program, a the Goethe Institute Salvador, BA, Brazil (2020). In 2018, she was awarded the PIPA Prize (1st place – online category) and in 2017 she was one of the three artists awarded with the FOCO Bradesco ArtRio Prize.