Márcia Falcão | Corpo de Cor | Contemporary Fine Arts (CFA Berlin) | 12.09.-01.11.2025

until 01.11. | #4807ARTatBerlin | Contemporary Fine Arts shows from Friday, 12. September 2025 (Vernissage: 11.09.), the exhibition “Corpo de Cor” by the artist Márcia Falcão.

Corpo de Cor—translated as Body of Colour—serves as both the title and conceptual framework of the exhibition. In her work, Márcia Falcão interweaves a sustained reflection on painting as a medium with an exploration of the body, which emerges not merely as a physical entity but as a vessel of history, identity, and political significance.

Using thick, impasto layers of oil paint and a dynamic brushstroke, Falcão creates strikingly voluminous nudes. Her paintings possess a visceral and painterly urgency that recalls the fleshy materiality of Lucian Freud and the monumental representations of Jenny Saville. Yet Falcão distinctly positions the body as that of a Black woman—often her own, shaped by personal experience.

Her approach to painting is deeply metalinguistic: through an interrogation of the medium’s formal qualities, she develops works that weave complex narratives and connections to femininity, motherhood, art history, marginalization, and violence.

This exhibition, in the artist’s words, “condenses over twenty years of research into painting through the body, articulated across five continually evolving series”: Ioga Psicológica, Monumentais, Capoeira em Paleta Alta, Passinho, and Malandra não para. Each series introduces new self-imposed challenges, each one paving the way for the next chapter in her exploration of representation and materiality.

Curator Raphael Fonseca observes: “Whether in her allegories of urban violence or her incisive depictions of the many forms of solitude endured by Black women—particularly mothers like herself—Márcia Falcão invites us to assemble the fragments of her narratives. For her, painting is a means of restoring meaning to fractured lives. As in life, there will always be gaps; yet in the meantime, we can gather the shards of her red floors and uncover the stories embedded in her work.”

Born in 1985 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she continues to live and work, Falcão has exhibited extensively in Brazil and the United States. She is featured prominently in the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Diálogos entre Carolee Schneemann, Diego Bianchi e Márcia Falcão at Pivô, São Paulo (2024); Funk! Um grito de ousadia e liberdade at MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro (2023); Pai Contra Mãe at Instituto Inclusartiz, Rio de Janeiro (2023); and a solo exhibition at Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo (2022). Her works are held in major public collections, including Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho; Marquez Family Collection, Miami; Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro; and Pérez Art Museum, Miami.

Title image caption: Posição 23, da Série Ioga Psicológica, 2025, oil and oil pastel on canvas, 120 × 100 cm