Micro / Macro: María Fernanda Cardoso and Angelina Nasso
The exploration of the natural world through two lenses
María Fernanda Cardoso was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1963, and currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia. Her multidisciplinary approach blends art, nature, science, and technology to transform unconventional materials into sculptures, installations, and other works of art. Cardoso studied Architecture and Visual Arts at the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Columbia, earning her MA in Sculpture from Yale University, New Haven, CT, and her PhD in Art and Science from the University of Sydney. The works shown in Micro / Macro come from her Spiders of Paradise series (2014 – ongoing), and reveal her interest in perception and the miniature. The spiders featured in these works are the Australian Maratus. These miniscule (smaller than a grain of rice) spiders are known for their quick movements, yet a microscope reveals their flamboyant coloration unrecognized by the human eye. Cardoso views the Maratus spiders’ form and behavior from an aesthetic perspective, as she explores their complex vibrancy, while documenting the compelling “world-within-worlds” where they exist. To create the Actual Size images, she collaborates with a scientific photographer, Geoff Thompson, to produce highly magnified, large-scale images which focus on the colorful patterns and composition of each spider’s form. She inscribes at top, “Actual Size,” and draws an arrow to two small dots on the print, the approximate size of the arachnid. Thus, with her playful approach and sense of wonder, she investigates human perception in her photographic work while reminding us of the mysterious beauty of the world around us.
Angelina Nasso was born in 1973 in Sydney, Australia, and currently lives and works in upstate New York. She has a wide educational background, having studied painting at the School of Visual Arts, NY, the China National Academy of Art, and East Sydney College, Australia. These varying perspectives in her academic range inform her work, both theoretically and stylistically. In this regard, she incorporates meditative actions into her paintings, and her sophisticated technical practice utilizes multiple thin layers of paint, creating richly colored yet ephemerally nuanced abstractions. Her shifting orbs of color convey the shared space of the universal energetic force, created by thin layers of phosphorescent pigment that spill and crackle across the canvas in veils and pools. Nasso is interested in the relationship between the individual and the universe, referring to “the space of potentiality,” where human energy interacts with “Sublime Nature.” To convey a sense of this enveloping Sublime, Nasso often paints in large-scale, where the works’ size effects the viewer’s sense of space. Drawing parallels to the ephemeral nature of experience and perception, she utilizes abstraction and luminosity as a metaphor for this interaction of forces. In depicting the natural realm in this way, Nasso steps back and views the earth through a macroscopic lens, depicting the immense unseen forces that create the world and universe around it.
Micro / Macro places Cardoso and Nasso in dialogue to explore the natural realm holistically. Cardoso explores the microscopic world of tiny spiders, while Nasso depicts macroscopic cosmic forces that are larger than the planet itself. Both artists aim to uplift, and foster a relationship with, nature by revealing new, engaging perspectives to understand it.
Exhibition curated and organized by MKG Art Management, LLC.
María Fernanda Cardoso works courtesy of Sicardi Ayers Bacino Gallery, Houston, TX.
Angelina Nasso works courtesy of McClain Gallery, Houston, TX.
