For Brazilian artist Márcia Falcão, the entrance to Frieze London is prime real estate for a 'shocking' encounter with her work. 'It's amazing. I'm here in front of the door,' she says. 'I'm really happy to put my work here. I feel like these bodies are in the centre of the conversation.'
In this film, Falcão reflects on 'Camuflada', her new series of paintings that foreground marginalized bodies, exploring their struggle to reclaim space while remaining vulnerable to the forces that seek to contain them. Recently included in the Bienal de São Paulo, the Rio de Janeiro-based artist has been thinking about how the body can be made visible without being left exposed.
The series takes its title from a form of camouflage that Falcão discovered while researching the history of British naval warfare. Known as 'dazzle', the technique used high-contrast patterns on ships during the First World War, disrupting the enemy's judgement for speed and direction. 'I started to think, "what if I painted these bodies with some camouflage too?"'
