Valeska Soares (born in 1957 in

Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...

, MG) is a Brooklyn-based Brazilian-American sculptor and installation artist. Her sculptures and installations utilize a wide range of materials—including reflective mirrors, antique books and furniture, chiseled marble, bottles of perfume—and draw on both her training in architecture and the tools of

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

and conceptualism.

Education and career

Valeska Soares received a Bachelor of Architecture from the Universidade Santa Úrsula, Rio de Janeiro, in 1987. In 1990, she completed a graduate certificate in the History of Art and Architecture from the

Pontifícia Universidade Católica A pontifical university is an ecclesiastical university established or approved directly by the Holy See, composed of three main ecclesiastical faculties (Theology, Philosophy and Canon Law) and at least one other faculty. These academic institute ...

of Rio de Janeiro. She presented her first solo exhibition in 1991 at Rio's Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto. That same year she was awarded a fellowship from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) to obtain an MFA from

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

. In 1994, after completing her MFA, she became a Doctor of Arts Candidate at the

New York University School of Education The New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (commonly referred to as Steinhardt) is the secondary liberal arts and education school of New York University. It is one of the only schools in the world of i ...

and had her first New York solo exhibition at the Information Gallery. In 1996, Soares received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

for Fine Arts. In 2003 she had her first survey exhibition, ''Valeska Soares: Follies'', which was presented by the Bronx Museum of the Arts and traveled to the Museo de Arte Contemporâneo in Monterrey in Mexico. Soares’ work has been included in numerous international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale of 2011 and 2005; the

São Paulo Biennial SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S. ...

of 2009, 1998, and 1994; the Sharjah Biennial in 2009; the Taipei Biennal in 2006; the Liverpool Biennial in 2004; and the Havana Biennial in 1991.

Work

Soares' education in architecture solidified her interest in site specificity and artworks that consider their spatial context. Her work often explores the point of transition from one physical or psychological state to another. Soares's sculptures and installations repeatedly contrast slick, reflective materials such as stainless steel and mirrors, with more ephemeral ones, like roses and lilies, revealing her interest in matters of subjectivity, perception, reflection, and distortion. These mirrored surfaces are used as a way to engage the viewers, who transition from passive spectator to active participant. She also uses numerous other sensory techniques, like sound, and smell, to create new environments and experiences for viewers. Recurring themes in Soares' work are interpersonal relationships, glossaries, labyrinths, and gardens, elements through which the artist alludes to mythology, literature, and to art history itself.

Public collections

Soares work is included in the collections of museums and cultural institutions in Brazil, Spain, Switzerland, England, Mexico and USA: * Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, USA * Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY, USA * Burger Collection, Zürich, Switzerland * Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, USA * Centro De Arte Contemporánea – CAC, Malaga, Spain * Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea – CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain * Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL, USA * Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA * Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA *Daros Foundation, Zürich, Switzerland * Fundação Cultural ITAU, São Paulo, SP, Brazil * Fundación “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain * Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA * Inhotim – Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Brumadinho, MG, Brazil * JP Morgan Chase, New York, NY * Katzen American University Museum, Washington, DC, USA * Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, MO, USA * Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA * Museo de Arte Contemporánea – MARCO, Monterrey, Mexico *Museu Arte de Pampulha – MAP, Belo Horizonte, Brazil * Museu de Arte Contemporânea – MAC, São Paulo, SP, Brazil * Museu de Arte Moderna – MAM, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil * Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil * Museu Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo – MEIAC, Badojoz, Spain *

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...

– MOCA, San Diego, CA, USA * New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM * Pinacoteca Museum, Sao Paulo, Brazil * Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA *

Solomon Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, New York, NY, USA * Tate Modern, London, England, UK * The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, MO * The

MINT Museum of Art The Mint Museum, also referred to as The Mint Museums, is a cultural institution comprising two museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown, together these two locations have hundreds of collection ...

, Charlotte, NC, USA *

The National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

, Washington DC, USA * The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, USA

References

External links

Artist Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soares, Valeska 1957 births Brazilian women artists Brazilian artists Living people Universidade Santa Úrsula alumni Pratt Institute alumni