Solo Exhibition by Flávia Müller Medeiros

About

For COLONY Flávia Müller Medeiros presents a new body of work including Photo Essay, a series of small scale collages. Based on an original project where she collected images of people who were murdered because of their beliefs, Flávia took 150 image cuttings of Gandhi, combining them with a second body of images taken from the Whitehouse website. Images of George Bush's head are now replaced with those of Gandhi. The work examines the collision of ideas, which on the one hand represents the power of the individual as pioneer of mass civil disobedience and non-violent principles and on the other the head of state of the United States and its status as super-power.

By juxtaposing apparent opposites, Flávia reflects on current global politics and the 'war on terror', while at the same time imagining a different history from that which seems to be based on violent philosophies. In the end the work suggests that notions of peace may only be a fantasy.

Flávia uses performance, photography and video to explore how language shapes understanding, and its relationship to artistic representation. Her works often create systems within which other works can be contained. In It depends on the circumstance and the people (2005), she worked with artists and curators to catalogue all her work from 1999 and 2004, reflecting on how systems can develop into artworks in their own right. Flávia's work is often based on interactions. You are beautiful (2003-ongoing) are cards that she gives out to people on the streets. Temporary Studio at the ICA (2005) as part of I.D.E.A.London aimed to create an artwork a day, arising from any interaction, conflict or negotiation between the artist and staff or visitors. Another work on video, Inaugurate (2005), combines language and image to create fresh readings of a sequence from Easy Rider by superimposing a rapidly-spoken clip of George Bush's inaugural speech.

Flávia Müller Medeiros was born 1971 in Rio de Janeiro. She lives and works in London, UK where she gained her MA in Fine Art (2003) at Goldsmiths College. Recent exhibitions include: Footnotes on
Geopolitics, Market, and Amnesia, Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art Main Project, Moscow, Russia; I Like Politique and Politique Likes me, Triangle Gallery, Marseille, France; (Solo show) Twang Twang Dreamland, Bearspace, London, UK; Beck's Futures 2006, ICA, London, UK; Flávia Müller Medeiros & Susan Taylor: This is not a collaboration, Unit 2 Gallery, London, UK. Flávia is currently part of the Holiday In residency organized by Gasworks, Triangle and CAC Galleries.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a limited edition DVD commissioned by COLONY. By the people, for the people is a film made on residency in Vilnius, Lithuania, capturing the activity of people in the new town square. Recording the everyday activity of people eating, reading, and meeting, the film documents the city's transition from a society where public gathering was forbidden into a 'European' style, modern city. And as ever with Flávia's work, we are constantly reminded of the hand of the artist in the film's production, and her enquiry into the creation of an artwork.
The DVD is available direct from COLONY for STG £10 plus postage, via Paypal. See www.colonygallery.com for details.