Helena Almeida

If one was to analyze Almeida’s work in diachronic terms one would say that it begins with the trace, moves on to shapes and shadows, and then finally to treating the whole space. Photography, the paintings support, began by being principally figural to become progressively spatial.* The background or scene is given ever more emphasis, not to dissolve the figure but rather to enunciate its limits. This background is always the artist’s studio: in the mid 90’s, the stone floor and white walls become permanent elements in her work.

In this series, the black high-heeled shoes are more than an accessory. Just as the elegant coquetry of the gesture of lifting one’s skirt, they stand as a symbol alluding to feminine seduction – an intention clarified by the title. To this is added and the addition of a red painted spot on the left foot’s sole, a touch of dramatization and theatricality that reinforces and at the same time disturbs this choreography of minimal gestures, as though affirming that “Seduction” implies pain and sacrifice.

* “Figural” is here used in the sense of François Lyotard’s Discours, Figure, from 1974 (Discourse, Figure, translated by Antony Hudek and Mary Lydon, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).

IC

May 2010