CLAUDIA MARA DAL CANTON - Protagonistas de um mesmo ambiente
 Medium: Lithography | Dimensions: 103 x 39 cm | Year: 1981

 

ARTWORK FORMAL DESCRIPTION
Figurative composition of gender. It shows a woman standing next to a man sitting on a chair. This image repeats five times. The first one on the left is sharper and more intense in color, with the following ones fading successively until an inverted chair in blind embossing is the only image left in evidence on the paper. This art piece won the “Delegacia Regional do MEC” Prize at the 38th Salon of Paraná in 1981.

 

THE ARTWORK
This print by Dal Canton is a play with five images in a sequel that highlights the artist’s precise technique in lithography and blind embossing. In the foreground, we see a couple and a chair well outlined by the matrix ink, which in the following prints will gradually fade until the only figure left is the blind embossing of the chair, this time inverted. Their clothing is characteristic of past times, possibly the first decade of the 20th century. Such a sequel leads us to think about presences and absences, also the action or effect of disappearing. Additionally, it makes us think about memory and how objects carry someone’s presence either as a memory record of the object of their own or through the depiction of scenarios they had traveled through or inhabited. “This series of lithograph prints came from the need to revive the origin of Italian immigrants living in southern Brazil, an idea that arose when I was teaching at the State University of Caxias do Sul (1979-82). […] Objects are the memory of a memory. […] through images, I try to portray the space occupied in people’s memory (it is a series of 20 works)”. (DAL CANTON, apud MOREIRA, 2002).

 

FOR REFLECTION

The work “Protagonists in the same environment” incite us to reflect on the possibility of disappearance and oblivion – when an image gradually erases from memory. In 2020, the social distancing and isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic brought up the confrontation between our expectations for the year and the metaphorical sense of the disappearance of social relationships as we know them. Will we be able to resist and endure? We will have the answer when facing the challenges life poses to us. Were I asked yesterday if I would manage to cope, I would have said no; today, I know I can! This sequel also instigates our thinking about family photos and people who are gone and sometimes forgotten. It can be a reminder for us. A reminder so that we do not forget, do not lose our legacy, and so we keep our ancestors’ heritage alive. This way, it is easier to know who we are.

 

TECHNIQUE – LITHOGRAPHY

 “Protagonists in the same environment” by Claudia Mara dal Canton is a lithograph. The word derives from the Greek “lithos” which means “stone". A lithograph is an image printed from its matrix on a limestone plate. A grease-based substance stick is used to draw on the stone plate, priorly treated with a chemical agent; the oil sticks the drawing to the surface, and the blank areas repel the ink away. Then, a sheet of paper is placed over the figure and put in a litho press. Finally, the image is print.