Angelina Gualdoni

The mangled supports of a delapidated structure are silhouetted against a chemical sky like wild brambles. Midway belongs to a series of recent works depicting a world in constant change, prey to mankind's malevolent inattentiveness. Abandoned buildings are eaten up by the ground on which they once proudly stood, subservient partners in a dialogue between the natural and man-made over which they have relinquished control. The role of chance is apparent in both the painting's subject matter and technique. Drips, spills and stains create a force of abstraction that threatens to engulf what remains of the representational imagery.

Praca dos Tres Poderes is a large, imposing square at the heart of Brasilia, the political capital of Brazil. Constructed between 1956 and 1960 to a design by visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer, and heralded as a landmark in contemporary urban planning, the city has come to be seen as a terrible utopian failure. Functionless, soul-numbing, and inhospitable to human trafffic, it today stands as a dated, retro icon, and a symbol of the death of Modernism itself. Gualdoni perfectly captures this emptiness, portraying a vast expanse of barren sky above the deserted pedestrian plaza, empty but for the discarded trolley of a popcorn vendor. The present, it is all too clear, is elsewhere, and the future is one of hushed uncertainty.