From the 3rd through the 27th of June, Finlandish Gallery Zebra (Fotocentrum Raseborg Valokuvakeskus) will be displaying the video and photographic exposition Relax. This exposition was first exhibited in 2007 at the Paço das Artes in São Paulo, Brazil, where it achieved considerable success. It later travelled to France, at the Galerie Sycomore, before its scheduled trip to Finland.

With Relax, artist Renata Barros discusses violence and our own urban prisons, making use of nudes, of intimacy, of laughter and playing children as a counterpoint to bestow a feeling of reassurance and relaxation.

In one room of the Gallery, visitors will be invited to relax in comfortable futons to watch the video. Next to the screen will be exhibited photographs of windows, barbed wire fences, doors and grates – photographs taken by Renata Barros over the last 8 years from various places around the world.

Some of the external glass walls of the Gallery will be covered with photographs of grates (plotted over the glass), which paradoxically protect and imprison the artwork.

In Finland, Renata Barros will take part in the International Art Symposium at the Kavinkartano Art Centre, which will run from the 26 of June through the 1st of July.

From the 20th through the 31st of May, Renata Barros was in Geneva, Switzerland, and Ferney-Voltaire, France, where the 10th Five Continents Film Festival took place. The Festival’s trophy for Best Film was conceived and crafted by the artist - entitled “Le Candide”, the piece represents writer and philosopher Voltaire’s character Candide travelling the world.

Lastly, Renata will put in an appearace at the Universal Expo Milan 2015, which runs from the 8th through the 29th of August. Her artwork, evocative of the calcium we call football (or soccer for some), will be exhibited at the Palazzina Liberty.

About the artist:

Renata Barros works with different materials for 25 years: painting on canvas, wood, glass, photography, latex. Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Brussels, Hovinkartano, São Paulo et Rio are some of the cities where she exhibited. Her works are part of collections of museums and foundations such as: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, MASP Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, MAC Museum of Contemporary Art of Sao Paulo, Rio Branco Institute - Brasilia, Goethe Institute in Bonn ( Germany), Heinrich Böll Foundation Berlin (Germany), Fundação Padre Anchieta São Paulo (Brazil), MAC Museum of Contemporary Art of Paraná (Brazil).