membrana

Primeval energy. Flaming twilights, liminal spaces and indiscernible zones; lamps, rays and solar bursts; fish scales and exoskeletons. All that is born, sprouts, hatches, then bites, devours. Explosion, rupture, ecstasy. What was once inside turns inside out, becomes the outside. What once embraced and separated soon tears apart. What is life will see death in the face, only to be reborn and reshaped.

In membrana, Anna Livia Monahan constructs a pictorial field of intense color, dense atmospheres, and uncanny scenes shaped by cycles of transformation. Here, the term does not refer to a specific biological structure, but to a principle. It designates the interface where relation, exchange, and translation occur between body and environment; the tenuous envelope that separates and connects, that encloses and exposes; the limits that define border and transition. In her compositions, fragile surfaces and extreme processes generate a fundamental tension. Birds and eggs, arthropods, the earth’s crust, and translucent tissues embody the strain inherent to thresholds and metamorphosis. These elements emerge as sensitive forms, suspended in the instant preceding fracture and transmutation.

Her research begins with empirical observation and the assimilation of knowledge drawn from natural forces. Her central interest lies in the mysteries of vital energy embedded in geological time, which erupts in birth, traverses the food chain, and transfers from one phase to another. In this sense, her practice is guided by a gaze that dissects, that pierces through layers, that insists on the thickness of matter. Painting acts as a revelatory cut: each image suggests a membrane on the verge of rupture, not as an isolated act of violence, but as an inescapable passage between states.

The time that emerges from these scenes is neither singular nor linear: it is imprecise and impermanent. Each earthly event, even at a small scale, connects to a cosmic dimension. Past and future meet at the horizon, so that every form carries within it the memory of the earth and the universe, as well as the mutable condition of all that exists, anticipating what is to come. In this sense, light in her paintings is not merely illumination: it is the force that generates, sustains, and destroys. It is a light that burns, veils, and reveals, in a dramatic play of shadows. In many works, a flare anchors the composition and organizes the surrounding elements, creating a balance between attraction and risk. There is always a latent eruption, the annunciation of trance, and creatures momentarily immobilized before a greater event, as if the world were holding its breath before impact.

This dynamic is intensified by expansive, empty landscapes. Against depopulated horizons, beings appear as individuals at the mercy of larger systems. In these paintings, emptiness is never absence; it is an existential ground: a space where vision stretches and self-awareness sharpens. Within this vastness, a natural event – ablazing sunset, a glow breaking through clouds, an animal shedding its skin, one creature devouring another – can become the inner landscape of the viewer, imprinting itself on retina and memory, awakening emotion and sensation.

The materiality of the paintings reinforces this metaphysical experience. Contrasts assert themselves, and sgraffito, exposing underlying strata, allows the pictorial plane itself to embody the logic of skin and crust. Silver and gold emerge as non-white light, shimmering, almost mineral. Transparencies achieved through fine glazes cause wings, scales, and carapaces to appear permeated by their surroundings. The formal does not illustrate the poetic – it is the very field in which poetry is constructed, between light and darkness, between revelation and mystery.

Within these images, there is a balance between delicacy and brutality, between glory and collapse. The cicada’s emergence, the bird breaking from its egg, the butterfly caught in a beak, a fish torn beneath the water. Though informed by the richness of fables, Anna Livia does not idealize nature nor instrumentalize it as moral allegory; on the contrary, she amplifies its strange, surreal character, making visible how profoundly these phenomena affect us emotionally, psychologically, and physiologically. The paintings provoke an unsettled fascination, producing physical sensations – a chill down the spine, a jolt, a contraction – while preserving a contemplative, magnetic, and silent dimension. Each sign operates simultaneously as a synesthetic stimulus and a key to immersion.

The artist’s work functions as a high-voltage device that brings the human into proximity with the familiarly unknown – the existential awe that surrounds and constitutes us. If there is an aspiration toward a new reality in her practice, it lies in the intensification of what already exists. By foregrounding the world’s fascinating, strange, and febrile character, these images speak to perception itself, to the pursuit of what eludes us, and to how we assign meaning to existence, projecting metaphors and constructing narratives from what we encounter. It is through this gesture that a symbolic fabric takes shape, always unstable and in flux, capable of giving tone and tension to life itself.

– Germano Dushá

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Anna Livia’s work explores the tension between human existence and natural forces, where order and chaos shift and intertwine. Her compositions combine oil and gouache painting with sculptural elements, unfolding in series that branch from a common core: anatomical studies, illuminated manuscripts, Pre-Renaissances paintings, and images that emerge from lived experiences and the subconscious.

The scenes depict moments in which chaotic creatures are rendered momentarily static, as if in anticipation of something greater. Layered perspectives uncover the depths of information a landscape, a living being, or an idea can hold. This reflects a scientific gaze that dissects elements to reveal what lies beneath the initial impression.

The contrast between revelation and mystery also emerges in the materiality of her work. Graphic outlines define forms atop layers of paint applied to colored gesso backgrounds. Using the sgraffito technique, vibrant and earthy tones emerge from engraved grooves, bridging painting and relief.

She explores representations of strange animals, living oneirically in a timeless, often deserted terrain. By blending dream and realism, she highlights the mystery that exists both inside and outside of all things.

Anna Livia Taborda Monahan (b. 1997, New York, USA) lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.

The artist’s solo exhibitions have included membrana, Mendes Wood DM, Casa Iramaia, São Paulo (2026); Avifauna Imaginária, Espaço Sérgio Porto, Rio de Janeiro (2024). Additionally, her work was included in group exhibitions such as Fartura, Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2025); Remanso, Mendes Wood DM, Casa Iramaia, São Paulo (2025); Babirussa, Rio de Janeiro (2025); 31^st MAJ, Sesc Ribeirão Preto, Ribeirão Preto (2024).