Mendes Wood DM is pleased to present Ardor e ira, a solo exhibition by artist Fernando Marques Penteado. Returning to the image of a home, Marques Penteado surveys a wide array of symbols that have been kept and cherished in domestic surroundings to cast protection on their inhabitants. Spanning different geographies and traditions, from Peruvian devotional figures to Afro-Brazilian gods, Ardor e ira traces a poetic exploration of humanity’s enduring search for evocative and protective objects. Combining installations, sculptural work, drawings, and storyboards, Marques Penteado literally embroiders the untold histories embedded in such representations.

Ardor e ira

We perpetually oscillate between pacification and affront. Ardor regenerates and fosters prosperity. Ira (wrath) reaps, eliminates, and triggers rancor. In this vast world, there is no place more serene, esteemed, and sought after than a home. And for a house to be consecrated as a home, it requires protection. Evoking the protection of a home, of a family, is an ancestral gesture. Emblematic figures cast their effects and vitality, which the house then adopts as its guardians.

Some walls in the exhibition revive ancient forms that call for fertility, others seek health, and others devotion. The side walls, however, are dedicated to one of the guides of the current year, 2024, Exu_Bará, with his abilities as a tenacious messenger between the physical and the psychic, subterranean worlds.

Another large wall presents a continuum of stories about homes: when they are already owned, when they are still being sought, or when they are lost due to misfortune. Fictions, arrangements, ornaments, sculptures, and maps expand our terrestrial globe. The home, just like life, oscillates between solid and ephemeral, beautiful and in ruins, protected or at the mercy of the elements and curses.

Finally, the exhibition includes three fictional narrative lines, accompanied by satellite objects: 1. the saga of Lurdes as she retrieves the urn containing her sister's ashes; 2. the joyful journey of Konrad from Bratislava in the Czech Republic to Portland in the USA; and 3. a riddle describing the inconsiderate man—a character, unfortunately, still very much in vogue.

That's it. Come and enjoy.

(Text by Fernando Marques Penteado)