artnexus #113

After studying industrial design in her native São Paulo, Erika Verzutti (1971) did her postgraduate work at Goldsmith College, in London. Experimenting with diverse materials and referents in her sculptures, she creates fantastic representations that allude to animals, ritual objects, fruits, and organic shapes, while citing the work of such renowned artists as Tarsila do Amaral, Sergio Camargo, Picasso, and Jeff Koons, among others.

As Verzutti explained in an interview published by the French publication Numéro, her encounters with the history of art have been generally fortuitous, and rather than responding to it, the issue to consider is how this history is perceived today: in her case, she sees it fragmented and sentimental. 

In the construction of her works, Verzutti uses a wide range of materials (including bronze, clay, papier-mâché, concrete, and various colors and textures), while incorporating and leaving on display “accidents” such as spills and scratches.

The images that Verzutti seeks to create are open to multiple readings and admit different meanings. In her opinion, logic and intuition go hand in hand; they are not mutually exclusive.

For Verzutti, there is no single formula to approach color or form, and the human eye is capable of perceiving the same proposal in different ways.

The work on our cover, Swan with Brush (2015), features a character often represented in her oeuvre. In it, Verzutti combines synthetic and organic materials to create, as she often does, hybrid objects that pose questions about the relationship between known shapes and their possible presentations.

IVONNE PINI