Clara de Cápua (Jaú-SP, 1984) is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist whose work spans both performing and visual arts. She is a PhD candidate in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, Portugal. She holds a Master’s degree in Arts (2010), supported by a grant from FAPESP, and a Bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts (2005), both from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. She has participated in international academic events, presenting papers and/or having them published in the respective proceedings. Clara has published articles in specialized journals and contributed chapters to books. In terms of artistic practice, she worked as an actress for many years, performing in theater plays and a film. In 2017, she began focusing on visual arts, primarily through drawing, video, and interventions on photography. Her work revolves around themes of disappearance and the tension between presence and absence in images. In 2024, she held the solo exhibition “Disappearance” in Porto, Portugal. She has participated in several group exhibitions, including the “Bienal de Arte Contemporânea da Maia 2023” (Portugal, 2023), the “XXII Bienal Internacional de Arte de Cerveira” (Portugal, 2022); the “Paadmaan Video Event #2” (Iran, 2021); the “16th Guarulhos National Salon of Contemporary Art” (Brazil, 2020/21); the “XV SIMULTAN Festival” (Romania, 2020); and the “III Mostra Diversa” (Brazil, 2019). From 2019 to 2022, she was represented by LONA Galeria (São Paulo, Brazil). Her works are part of both private and public collections, such as the “MDS – Museum of Sexual Diversity” (São Paulo, Brazil). Her videos have been exhibited in Brazil, Germany, Iceland, Romania, Belgium, Portugal, and Iran.

Theses title
Processes of disappearance and ways of looking at absence in artistic practice

FCT reference
2024.00306.BD

Abstract
The project is centered on the study of the tension between presence and absence in the image. With a theoretical-practical approach, it affirmatively embarks on an investigation in art, aiming to contribute to the development of this field through its specificity. The project proposes to explore the hypothesis that the border zone between presence and absence is a fertile ground for imagination, aligned with the concepts of “theatricality” and “critical fabulation,” as well as for experimenting with the boundaries between the real and the fictional. Based on a multidisciplinary, authorial artistic practice, it seeks to investigate the manipulation of memory and documentary records in the suggestion of fictions, as well as the problematization of the visible in the construction of imaginaries, thereby contributing to the study of the image in its “performative” potential. In contrast to the recurring assertion of presence, the investigation also takes on a political dimension by focusing on absence and disappearance as research themes in art.

Supervision
Pedro Tudela (supervision) and Cristina Mateus (co-supervision)

More info

• 4515-4E0E-3687
• https://www.claradecapua.com