“Cash Book - Girls (The Unkempt Ones)”

Questions about the existence and non-existence of things, their presence and absence, permeate Marina Saleme's paintings, engravings and photographs. Highlights include solo and group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo, Paço das Artes (São Paulo), Maria Antônia University Center (São Paulo), Paço Imperial (Rio de Janeiro), Palácio das Artes (Belo Horizonte), Centre D'Art Contemporaine De Baie-Saint-Paul (Canada), the Brazilian Embassy in France (Paris), among others. Her works are in prominent public and private collections such as the Figueredo Ferraz Institute Collection (Ribeirão Preto), the Brazilian Embassy in Rome, the Itaú Cultural Institute. São Paulo, the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. São Paulo.

Marina completed her degree in Fine Arts at the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation in 1982 and has not stopped producing since. We can see that in the early years the artist worked more with tonal spots, without reference to the human figure. Generally "Untitled", they point out shapes composed of straight lines. However, as the artist states: "My works are never completely abstract."

From the mid-1990s onwards, his work began to include allusions to figures such as people, rain, flowers and clouds, many of which were indicated in the titles themselves. In the following decade, his lines also became sinuous, curving to form arabesques that were sometimes partially hidden by other images and at other times were visible in the most superficial layer.

Her process is slow and reflective. Her works are created in layers, the surface treated several times until it gains substance and becomes denser. The artist adds, observes, questions, and makes things disappear. The act of erasing is part of Marina's creative process and can be related to the disappearance of things and people in the world. In this way, the final work is composed of a chain of images with translucency and opacity, images composed of a constant interplay between the visible and the invisible.

As Cauê Alves comments: “The narrative that emerges from Marina Saleme’s career is not a narrative with a beginning, middle and end, with a predictable development; on the contrary, it is one of an internal historicity that is unique to her work. Each work paves the way for the next because it takes up something from the previous one, something that is literally absent from it, that is perceived as lacking and that will be completed by the new work. And the path to the next one also emerges from the excess of meaning in each painting, which is precisely the possibility of it being seen from an unforeseen angle, that is, as pure openness.”