DON'T YOU WANT ME BABYYYYY?

Você não me quer beeebêêêê?

by curator Marina Ramos

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"After the work series presented in her performance "Janta®" and in her solo show "Fruits of Labor", in which the artist produced ceramics painted in popular food brands motifs, Larissa Fantini dedicates this series of drawings to her fascination with markets as anthropologic and affectionate spaces and the concept of the American dream.

 

Such drawings are like self-portraits or autobiographical reports, representing the various stores the artist used to attend in the cities she lived throughout her life. Born in Brazil, Larissa spent most of her existence outside her home country, moving from place to place because of her parents' job. In Indonesia, the first country she lived in as a child, the artist recounts her family's visit to the American military base in a rural area. Nearby, at a gas station, she discovered a new world "with streets paved with Lucky Charms cereal and rivers of high-fructose corn syrup" - foods that appeared in the American movies and series she used to watch on cable TV. These were seen in almost every market she visited around the world.

 

The fascination and nostalgia for these elements are evident in her use of oil pastel and the varnish finish on paper. The crayon material gives an attractive, childlike and almost edible plastic element to the drawings, especially in the piece "Shelf portrait". In this drawing she reproduces a supermarket shelf on a human scale where her most favorite and dearest foods are displayed for the viewer. In the convenience store portraits, Larissa chose to reproduce the facades of different places she used to go throughout her life, in order to buy items for her need and desire. The varnish finishing and the image framing give a photographic element to the drawings, which are fond records in the artist's memory, like a postcard.

 

The artworks in this exhibition show that both identities of the contemporary  individual and society are built based on the concept of desire. Commerce spots and consumer goods, especially food, create relationships of affection (or aversion) in the daily life. When we consume through our eyes and mouths - bodies, in general -, these elements surround us in ways which they infiltrate our memories, tastes and desires through palates, jingles and images. Larissa assumes this condition, and her artworks, in addition to talking about herself, draw the portrait of a society that consumes through its affections".

Marina Ramos

July 2022