Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Ripples and Droplets

Maria Fernanda Cardoso is fuelled by her unwavering curiosity about the natural world. In a new series of paintings that preluded her recent major commission in the Sydney CBD, Ripples and Droplets, Cardoso turns her focus to ephemeral expressions of water that will be shown exclusively online this October at Sullivan+Strumpf.

By Chloe Borich

The Columbian-born, multidisciplinary artist has long examined things in microscopic detail that may otherwise go unnoticed. From training fleas to perform circus tricks, to photographing the electric patterns of a spider’s abdomen, to hand collecting fallen gumnuts for her undulating wall installations, Cardoso is devoted in her unique approach to material-based explorations. ‘I like magnifying tiny things and making them visible’, tells Cardoso, ‘I love life, so I spend a lot of time looking at how life forms itself. But that self-formation of living organisms also obeys the laws of physics, so we see the same patterns in animate and inanimate forms. Our veins behave exactly as a river does’.

Cardoso’s enthusiasm for such investigation is contagious and widely admired. Recognising her fondness of diminutive details eight years ago, architect Angelo Candalepas invited her to collaborate with him on a residential project that would see her upscale her work, onto the façade of a high-rise building at 116 Bathurst Street. True to her interest in recurring motifs in nature and science, Cardoso decided to explore the natural movements of water and its cyclical evolutions. By drawing and painting simultaneously, the artist produced studies of repetitive concentric shapes and spirals that refer to fluid mechanics and behaviours, like ripples across a pond. ‘Moving the fluids around using my arm as a pendulum creates a pattern that the brain associates with how ripples are formed’, explains Cardoso, ‘The tiny drops were not individually painted on each line, but they formed all by themselves in the process of applying lines of mineral paints. I noticed the fluid coalesced in reaction to the repellence in the substrate. Just like dew forms on a spider web. I encouraged and perfected both processes (fluid lines and drop formations) to create these paintings’.

Recognising her fondness of diminutive details eight years ago, architect Angelo Candalepas invited her to collaborate with him on a residential project that would see her upscale her work, onto the façade of a high-rise building...

Working together since the inception of the project in 2014, the commission was sensitive to Candalepas’ liberal use of concrete, which Cardoso saw as an opportunity to develop a new painting technique. Using pure mineral pigments, the artist found the fluid could bond to the materiality of concrete through a chemical reaction and form a permanent ‘tattoo’.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso Riples and Droplets (white on cement) (detail), 2019 silicate material paint and acrylic paint on fibre cement board 60 x 30 cm

Maria Fernanda Cardoso in her studio, 2022

Photo: Jillian Natly

Spanning 350sqm and 11 storeys high, an old muralist technique known as the ‘pouncing method’ favoured by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci translated her studies to the gigantic proportions required, where a template is created using small holes and powdered chalk, and then traced with steady concentration. ‘I wanted to magnify every kink and every drop exactly as my hands had applied them on the small panels I worked with’, Cardoso attests, ‘I loved the process of painting it; it was like playing the violin but with the paintbrush—you always stay in contact with the string’.

I loved the process of painting it; it was like playing the violin but with the paintbrush—you always stay in contact with the string.

With the mural complete, the artist has returned to her studies ahead of her online show of the same name, Ripples and Droplets. Using small-scale fibre cement sheets, the same pure mineral pigments delineate repetitive lines and droplets that swell and overlap, resounding together to create dynamic web-like patterns in vibrant colours. Hypnotic and calming at once, through these works Cardoso again demonstrates her ability to encourage her viewer to observe, think and look again.

ONLINE EXHIBITION: MARIA FERNANDA CARDOSO RIPPLES AND DROPLETS, OCT 2022+ EMAIL ART@SULLIVANSTRUMPF.COM TO REQUEST A PREVIEW