A Body in Metamorphosis
Elen Braga[21 de outubro de 2024]
I first came across Elen Braga's work in 2011, in São Paulo, when the artist still signed her name Elen Gruber. We met at a collective studio she was part of, which occasionally opened its doors as an exhibition and experimentation space. Much has happened in her career over the past ten years. Still, I have a special fondness for this moment when we met because – like any artist at the beginning of their career – she was feeling her way through the broad field of visual art and trying to understand which topics and media might be of interest for her research.
An untitled video of hers from 2011 is referred to simply as Rosa [Pink] in some of her older portfolios. Filmed vertically, we see a space filled with white tiles. The ambient sound reminds us of something related to water running through the space – the association with a bathroom is almost inevitable. There is a bench and a container with pink liquid. The artist sits on the bench with her back to the camera and slowly begins to paint her body. We gradually observe a specific juggling act as she captures the different angles and surfaces of her back, always leaving her face a mystery. After performing the action, she stands up and leaves pink traces – a stamp of her buttocks on the bench and the remains of the action on this previously aseptic surface.
This is an extremely simple video in terms of production and economical in terms of narrative; nonetheless, it is interesting to note her practice’s recurring interest in working with the image of her own body and placing it in an open narrative space, which has grown more complex over the last ten years. Here, her body goes from something hominid and imitative due to the realism of the video to something nonsensical and pink – a commentary on painting? A reflection on the association between color and gender? The suggestion of autofiction is one of the backbones of Elen Braga's practice.
Many of her early works were produced as video performances. Actions involving tension and effort, along with objects carrying strong symbolism, such as corsets and straitjackets, are the main motifs in these images. In some of them, due to the focus on specific parts of the body or the mirroring effect suggested in the video, we cannot distinguish what is being shown: is it the artist herself? Is it her body doubled? In her first performances, we see the artist performing and/or inviting the audience to perform activities such as wrestling, including arm wrestling and tug-of-war. Sweating, colliding with others, falling, and repeating everything again becomes necessary. No pain, no gain – but what is there to gain from the pleasure of making art?
At a later point, Elen developed an interest in epic figures such as Hercules. According to a lost book written by the epic poet Peisander, which is dated between the 7th and 6th centuries BC, Hercules is said to have performed twelve tasks as penance. After committing a heinous crime – the murder of his family during a fit of madness provoked by Hera – these tasks were meant to redeem him and set him on the path to immortality. In each episode of his narrative, the notions of displacement and the destruction of enemies are fundamental: from the Nemean Lion to Cerberus, the hound of the underworld, Hercules relied on his physical strength and wit to assert his superiority, driven by a thirst for vengeance.
In 2013, Elen Braga put herself in the place of Hercules; she became the heroine of her story. As in the ancient tale, this series of works was developed in very different places – Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, the United States, Bolivia, and, finally, Belgium, where she has lived since 2016. Far from the Herculean monsters, her enemies here do not have bodies that can be destroyed with physical strength. Instead, the artist’s struggle seems to be not only with herself but also with the natural phenomena that surround us daily, which can be intensified in places like a salt desert or beaches famous for their rough waves.
Made in collaboration with several professionals who have become friends over the course of her career, many of these works feature her body performing alone in these spaces. This series of twelve works also reflects on solitude: what are the limitations of the notion of the artist as traveler? How long can her body remain upright in the face of other physical forces?
Alongside works that engage directly with the notions of landscape and romanticism, another part of the series focuses on the encounter between the artist and objects related to bodybuilding and martial arts. Weights, gloves, shoes, and iron bars reveal her growing interest in accessories that can be attached to her physicality and expand the notion of the body. The pink Elen – almost a nod to an Ingres painting, embodying delicacy, fragility, and, at the same time, strangeness – leaves the scene to give way to a more physically active artist, unafraid to make her image the protagonist of a profound autofiction. Furthermore, this artist no longer fears experimentation or venturing in different directions. Whoever takes on the twelve tasks of Her-, I mean, Elen, is ready to try anything.
It is interesting to observe the changes in the artist's research since Belgium became her new home. Her work has undergone a growing process of institutionalization in Western Europe, leading to the acquisition of her works, the circulation of her performances, and a greater formal and conceptual rigor that reflects a visual art system very different from that of Brazil. Some works from the beginning of this migration process deepen something of the futurism found in some of her earlier performances, from her interest in metallic-colored leotards to actions with uniforms and sound helmets that evoke an aerospace aesthetic. There are performances with a tricycle built by the artist herself and another performance with her father, in which she attempts to fly inside the KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels. Asepsis permeates many of these pieces, shifting her self-image from that of an athletic heroine to someone closer to the scientist or inventor – or, as is often said in Brazil, a figure like the Disney character Gyro Gearloose.
The change of continent has certainly allowed Elen to engage with a medium which she has devoted herself to in recent years: tapestry. It is interesting to observe a trajectory that, while initially guided by the expressiveness of performance, is gradually distancing itself from video, photography, and the creation of objects with industrial materials towards an ancient practice rooted in various artisanal traditions, often associated with women. If we previously spoke of a certain futurism in her practice, I see these recent works as another stage in her autofictions: we no longer see Elen as a body documented by cameras, needing to show the viewer, "Look, I did this action," "Notice, I stood there, still, for two hours." The focus now lies in the infinite possibilities of playing with the representation of her body through the chromatic expressiveness that tapestries offer. Using a textile gun, she creates complex narratives in a matter of days, responding to the vibrations provided not only by different colors but also by the different material origins of the threads. Elen is once again a superheroine, with compositions that evoke a particular visual culture of role-playing and video games. Her interest in epic narratives remains latent, but perhaps it is no longer necessary to echo the memory of Hercules.
In a series of tapestries from 2022, we see a figure in blue clothing in various situations. In one, the words "Palace of Justice" are written above, and the figure appears to have fallen from its horse, which is heading towards the building. In another work, titled Dragon's Mouth, the figure is looking away while holding a pickaxe. In front of her is a hole that appears to have been dug from the inside of a mountain, revealing a bright, fantastical landscape. It resembles an image taken from the pixelated landscapes of Super Nintendo or Mega Drive games. Mistress of Beasts (2022), Woman with the Sin(2022), and Salt Statues (2022) are other images that play with the mysterious actions of this figure, from confronting a beast to hiding animals under her dress, to striking a seductive pose in front of a city that appears in the background, crowned by a rainbow. There is plenty of room for imagination in all of these images, and the artist's ability to bring together a wide range of colors on the surface of the tapestry certainly contributes to the vintage futurism of these works.
Curiously, the first tapestry she made not only impressively condenses her interest in the technique but also seems to guide her research over the next few years: the monumental work Elen ou Hubris (2020), created at the Arc de Triomphe in Brussels. Measuring approximately 24 meters in height, the work references a series of her works dating back to 2016, in which the artist, wearing a blue leotard, performed and directed collective actions in Sala de Exercícios[Exercise Room], exploring the relationship between the human body and the concept of the podium. Something similar, but collective, can be seen in Green Screen (2017), presented at Central Saint Martins in London. In this work, a sequence of podiums features performers standing with their backs to the viewer while gazing at a wall.
This large-scale work created in Brussels brings something different: a direct confrontation with the viewer's gaze. Transformed into a giant tapestry, Elen Braga's body is now a colossus. Standing on a small podium, she not only stares at the passersby in the Belgian capital but also holds a weight-training ring that can be seen as a symbol of worship, a threat, or an object of self-protection. Drawing on iconography related to Christianity and tarot cards, the image’s verticality and strategic placement in the city could not go unnoticed.
To a certain extent, I see this work as a great tribute to freedom and perseverance. This body which was exhibited for a single day in one of the largest and wealthiest capitals in Europe was that of an immigrant who knows full well the tasks – certainly more than a dozen – that had to be undertaken without hesitation to solidify a career as a visual artist.
Pink, athletic, Herculean, inventor, aseptic, heroine of a fable, or monumental like an Ionic column: these are the bodies, the effigies, the characters, the narrative layers that make up Elen Braga's trajectory so far. Far from safe places – and, above all, far from the clichés expected of a "Brazilian artist" – her self-image and research prove day after day to be a happy "walking metamorphosis."[1]
May the spark and curiosity that she had back in 2011, which allowed her to swim in new oceans, never fade. May we continue to be surprised by the manifold connections her research offers us as spectators for many more years to come.
[1] The expression “walking metamorphosis” is borrowed from a popular song of the same name by Brazilian musician Raul Seixas.
(texto feito para o livro “Elen Braga”, publicado em junho de 2025, na Bélgica)