Fernanda Gomes was born in 1960, in Rio de Janeiro. She graduated from the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial in 1981. She worked as a designer until 1991, when she began to dedicate herself exclusively to the visual arts. Her first exhibition was a solo show, at Funarte's Galeria Macunaíma, in 1988. Many others followed, the most recent being at the Secession, in Viena, and at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, both in 2019.
A full-time artist, her work occupies the entire space where she lives, even when she promotes emptiness. She works anywhere, almost as if she were at home. She travels frequently for exhibitions, and feels best when she travels light; things are everywhere.
Dealing with a wide range of processes and procedures, she articulates a language with an extensive and ever-expanding vocabulary. The palette of whites and raw materials takes a radical view of color, which literally includes light as matter. The gathering of the works in the space is treated as a work in itself, in unrepeatable exhibitions, which react to different contexts. Still, she believes in autonomous works of art, in their most primitive sense of a living object. The modest materials, the human scale, the playful dimension, contribute to an open and personal meaning for each observer. [excerpt from the artist's interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2020]
Recent solo shows include: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2020-2019), Secession, Vienna, Austria (2019); Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico (2018); Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2017); Alison Jacques Gallery, London (2017); Peter Kilchmann, Zurich (2015); Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2014); Centre International de l'art et du Paysage, Vassivière, France (2013); Alison Jacques Gallery, London (2013); Museu da Cidade, Lisbon (2012).
Recent group shows include: 35th Brazilian Art Panorama, MAM Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo (2017); OSSO – Exposição-apelo ao amplo direito de defesa de Rafael Braga, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2017); “Doubles, Dobros, Pliegues, Pares, Twins, Mitades”, The Warehouse, Dallas (2017); “Third Mind. Jiri Kovanda and (Im)possibility of a Collaboration”, National Gallery, Prague (2016); “Cut, Folded, Pressed & Other Actions”, David Zwirner, New York (2016); “Em polvorosa - um panorama das coleções do MAM”, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2016); “Accrochage”, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2016); “Imagine Brazil”, DHC/ART, Montreal (2015), Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2015), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2014), Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo (2013); “Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict”, CIFO Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, Miami (2014); “Une histoire, art, architecture et design, des années 80 à aujourd’hui”, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); 13th Istambul Biennial (2013); 30th São Paulo Biennial (2012).
Public collections holding her work include: Centre Pompidou, France; Tate Collection, England; Miami Art Museum, USA; Fundación/Colección Jumex, Mexico; Serralves Foundation, Portugal; Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo; Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Germany; Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Centre National des Arts Plastiques, France; Art Institute of Chicago, USA.