Fernanda Gomes Sem título (Untitled) 1999
Fernanda Gomes constructs subtle sculptures, collages, and installations made from simple materials. Untitled is composed of used cigarette papers, delicately patched together in rows and columns that form an irregular grid. Onto each of these small, square sheets, the artist has stamped the date when she smoked each set of cigarettes. The piece embodies a sense of vulnerability and transience, representing an object that is distinctly physical, yet as fragile or fleeting as smoke. A distinct contrast is established between the rational order associated with the grid structure and the ritual practice of smoking, as well as the ritual associations with burning and fire.
Identification
Title
Sem título (Untitled)
Production Date
1999
Object Number
2008.75
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by PAMM’s Collectors Council
Copyright
© Fernanda Gomes
https://www.pamm.org/en/artwork/2008.75
Copy artwork link
Physical Qualities
Medium
Collage with cigarette papers
Dimensions
20 1/4 x 18 inches
Visual Description
Sem título (Untitled) by Fernanda Gomes is a collage piece from 1999. It measures twenty and one quarter of an inch tall by eighteen inches wide.
A collage is a method of art making where objects or images, often found, are fixed together to create a new object.
Untitled is made of hundreds of cigarette papers glued together to create one large and irregularly shaped piece of paper. The cigarette papers are arranged in two dozen neat, thin vertical columns, each about the width of a cigarette. The paper is mostly white, but the bottom edges of each singular cigarette are brown as if partially burnt. Throughout the piece there are numbers written on top of the paper in blank ink. From afar the piece resembles the topography of distant mountains or the stripped bark of a pale wooded tree, like birch.
