Yellow Flower Dream: Beatriz Milhazes in Conversation with Dr Sofia Gotti

About

In conjunction with the display of a partial, full-scale replica of her work Yellow Flower Dream on the Ground Floor of Japan House London, we are delighted to invite guests to join Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes in a live talk unpacking the development and design of the artwork and its context within the Inujima ‘Art House Project’, explored in our current exhibition Symbiosis: Living Island.

The work was created for A-Art House, an open-air gallery on the island of Inujima. Depending on the angle from which they are viewed, the colours and shapes of Yellow Flower Dream change to capture vibrant energy of the island’s landscape, allowing the communities of Inujima to experience their own environment in an entirely different way.

In this event, Beatriz is joined in conversation by Dr Sofia Gotti (Affiliated Lecturer at University of Cambridge), whose research in Latin American Art, ecology and post-colonial theories helps broaden the topics explored in the discussion. After focusing on the creation and development of Yellow Flower Dream, the conversation opens up to reflections on the relation between Beatriz Milhazes’s art, the environment, and the Japanese community in Inujima, as well as the importance of the presence of women artists within the contemporary artistic context.

There is also an opportunity for guests attending in person and online to ask questions to the speakers during this event.

The exhibition Symbiosis: Living Island is on display in the Japan House Gallery from 21 May until 4 September 2022.

About the Speakers

Beatriz Milhazes 

Beatriz Milhazes lives and works in Rio, where she was born in 1960. Characterized by vibrant colours, optical movement and energetic visual cadences, Milhazes's abstract work fuses a diverse repertoire of images and forms, combining elements from her native Brazilian culture with European abstraction. 

One of the most important Brazilian artists, having participated at Venice Biennale (2003) and with numerous international solo exhibitions in most prestigious institutions, as Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2011), Perez Art Museum, Miami (2014/2015) and MASP, São Paulo (2020), her work is included in important museums and public collections around the world, as MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Tate Modern, London.

Dr Sofia Gotti

Specializing in Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art, Dr Sofia Gotti is Affiliated Lecturer and Newton Trust/Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the History of Art Department at the University of Cambridge. She has previously taught at the The Courtauld Institute of Art and the Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti (NABA) in Milan. Her writing is published in books, academic journals and magazines including ArtMargins, Tate Papers, FlashArt, Mousse, Nero and Art-Agenda. Sofia also works as an independent curator in collaboration with museums and galleries internationally. Her latest project is an exhibition of recent work by Paraguayan artist Claudia Casarino at Galería Fuga Villa Morra in Asunción.