"Foreign Land" Painting

Giovana (b. 1995, Curitiba, Brazil) is a painter creating fractured, fluid compositions that defy easy reading. Figures are bisected, fading between foreground and background, and structures melt into abstract brushwork. Blurred and uncanny, each picture demands a second look from any viewer hoping to grasp the depth of their dreamlike unreality.

Her most recent works emerge from collages assembled from printed magazines — fragments of landscapes, architecture, human figures, and objects are combined into surreal, dreamlike scenes that feel strangely familiar, like half-remembered memories. These collages serve not as references to be copied, but as maps: loose frameworks from which paintings emerge unpredictably through experimentation with paint.

Working primarily in acrylics, Töws embraces the medium's demand for quick decisions — scraping, washing, and excavating layers, letting the process leave its marks openly. Masking tape introduces sharp architectural edges, creating tension between control and chance. The result is work that sits at the boundary between figuration and abstraction, where some forms dissolve into atmosphere while others hold their ground.

Inspired by Adrian Ghenie, Peter Doig, Gerhard Richter, David Hockney, and Neo Rauch, she aims to create believable yet unsettling spaces charged with anxiety, melancholy, solitude, and quiet tension — paintings that investigate identity, memory, and the process itself.

Giovana’s work has been featured in several exhibitions in Antwerp and Brazil.