Márcia Clayton: Borderline

Márcia Clayton is a contemporary visual artist living/working in Kent and Rio de Janeiro. She embraces the feminine condition and reaffirms her own identity as well as that of the collectivity. Her practice integrates text and images in a variety of media.

The process of artistic production may become, at a certain stage, a ritual of reaffirmation of the artist’s identity as well as that of the collectivity. It was what happened when Márcia Clayton started etching a series of chestnut fencing poles with words, revealing her soul and infusing the wood with poetry. She allowed herself to be touched by her present territory, taking control and transforming it into her own place, a lived space. To bury the poles in the ground, another stage of her production, is an act of freedom that transcends both herself and her artwork. To put them side by side in an art gallery is to share affections and aspirations, integrating different worlds.

In this context, the performance video ‘The wilderness is Kent. Kent is the wilderness‘ presents the strength of a woman who takes decisions and dominates the land, the work and place where she lives. She reaffirms her roots and constructs ideas, merging with the earth itself. To become a citizen in a lived space and turn it into your own, embraces the direct relationship between territory/space/place.

Back to our daily life, we find ourselves as observers and active actors in a dysfunctional society. Art fosters action. When looking at the white school uniform shirts on display, the idea of light in knowledge is switched off. The shirts have been stitched describing a time of violence. Each thread contains the movement of the needle in a slow rhythm, its symbolism denoting the fracture, discontinuity and social disarray. It is a warning.

The installation which brings braille and Buddhist mantras was conceived in partnership with a visually impaired friend and might cause some strangeness at first. It makes clear the conceptual relation that permeates this exhibition. The writing in braille opens to whoever wants to see a world of possibilities in narratives that create images and uncover darkness. The mantras and the meditation are an immersion in self-knowledge and an offering up to light.

The geometry of the show is completed with the expanded painting positioned in the gallery at an angle. This reveals the discovery of a blue – YInMn Blue – made up of the elements Yttrium, Indium and Manganese. The construction of a new path is all that Borderline is about.

Text by Joanice Vigorito, Historian and Curator