Aspen Art Museum

Untitled

2024

Oil on linen

15¾ × 19⅝ in   |   39.9 × 49.8 cm

Kindly donated by the artist and Pace Gallery

Estimate: $40,000–$60,000

The following text appears in the Aspen Art Museum Summer Magazine 2024

For Marina Perez Simão, “painting happens where words fail.” The bold, decisive lines and vibrant expanses of color evoke the lush tropical land- scapes of a childhood spent between Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Semi-abstract, the soft, organic curves pulse with warmth and energy; bursts of sharp orange and the burning yellow of the sun offset aqueous blues and verdant greens. Simão’s declaration above comes from a short film made by Pace Gallery earlier this year to ac- company her exhibition in Los Angeles. In the film, she also explains that an exploration of light and movement lies at the heart of her work. The resonance felt between the lines in her paintings should, she says, feel like the ripples that spread through the water when a stone is cast into its depths.

In an interview in 2022 with Elephant magazine, Simão explains that she never works when she is sad. To get her into the “state of courage” she needs to paint, music plays an important role. And, indeed, there is a lyricism to her work—an intensely personal form of expression, but one abundant in its generosity. As she explains in the same film from 2024, for Simão the more meanings the work can contain, the better: “I don’t want to be too descriptive, I don’t want to give too much detail. I want to leave room for the person who’s looking at it. They can be creative as well.”

Born in Vitória, Brazil, Simão studied in Paris, and now lives in São Paulo. Her work is held in a number of public collections, including the Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne in France; Speed Art Museum, Louisville; and University of Chicago.

About the Artist

Marina Perez Simão has developed a working process based fundamentally on the accumulation and juxtaposition of memories and images. By combining personal experiences and multiple references stemming from fields such as philosophy, literature, and journalism, the artist collects certain narratives in order to edit them through pictorial means that do not belong to any predefined language; rather, they develop with an organic practice, which combines thematic density and a delicate treatment. Simão uses a variety of techniques, such as collage, drawing, and oil painting, as starting points in order to marry interior and exterior landscapes, she composes visual journeys that sometimes traverse the unknown, the abstract and the nebulous, but also include visions and memories. Simão’s work leads us into territories in which we are confronted with that which is ungraspable, with that elusive and unspeakable instant that poets strive so hard to capture with their words.

How to Bid

All lots will be on view at the Aspen Art Museum from July 17 through August 1.

Bidding on this work takes place at the ArtCrush gala on Friday, August 2nd, at 8pm MT. Absentee and telephone bidding available.

Please contact bid@aspenartmuseum.org for more information, including a condition report.

In the Live Auction, there is no Buyer’s Premium and the difference between the mid-estimate and the winning bid is a tax deductible donation to the museum.

Explore the Online Auction     Explore the Live Auction     Explore the Private Sale