Badende 2011

Curator: Here we have "Badende," a work executed in acrylic on canvas in 2011 by Manuela Sambo. It presents a standing nude figure against a segmented background of patterned stripes and pale green washes. Editor: Okay, my immediate feeling is cool, almost melancholic. The palette is interesting, that faded turquoise skin tone. She feels…distant, lost in thought while her hair is dripping. Curator: The title “Badende”, meaning “Bather”, places her in a liminal space, between cleansing and vulnerability. The repetition of teardrop-shaped forms might signify this duality of purification, also maybe a sign of emotional purging and pain. How the female body has been constructed is central, but also the agency of women in image production in Contemporary Art, particularly from an artistic background with diversity characteristics. Editor: It makes you think, doesn’t it? All the markings on her skin, they seem less like decoration and more like... a history etched onto her very being, and that striking vertical division of the composition – half geometric abstraction, half fluid figuration– maybe reflects that tension between the imposed and the authentic self. Curator: I find it compelling how Sambo blends figuration with abstract elements. There’s a dialogue between the personal, seen in the subject’s posture, and broader themes concerning identity. Also important how acrylic, usually not highly valued, becomes powerful by the artistic gesture, that defies conventional art history narratives. Editor: And what’s compelling about those horizontal stripes that frame the scene is the way they seem to vibrate against her skin—like boundaries or a holding cell or constraints pushing against the vulnerable. There’s so much depth in what appears simple on the surface. Almost as though this moment it is the artist that captures that intimate portrait, even a self-portrait of the times when it was produced. Curator: Well said. I appreciate how this artist encourages the audience to engage actively, thinking beyond visual aesthetics, contemplating how the body can become a site where narratives, experiences, and histories converge and ultimately reflect socio-political changes and the constant resignification of museums. Editor: Absolutely, Manuela Sambo delivers a work where stillness is misleading. A seemingly passive, yet complex painting that rewards lingering observation and personal interrogation. A very poignant piece.