Luisa Alcântara’s “Stalker” project tells of the germination and explosion of contrasting emotions and feelings.
By overturning dissonant situations through an ambiguous relationship with the pictorial language, Alcântara constructs a phenomenology that intertwines technology and painting in a direct manner, leaving no room for misunderstandings—by misunderstanding.

With tragicomic humor, she converges “predatory passion” into an intricate and perverse pictorial journey that, “in crescendo”, makes the viewer relive sensations hidden in the depths of their subconscious.

The coexistence of adverse yet complementary mediums and technologies, such as audio guides and complex texts, is the result of privileged and mysterious relationships with artists, curators, friends, or friends of friends; but who are these people that freely intrude into the life of the artist’s work?

I’m beginning to feel jealous.

The viewer becomes both “stalker” and “stalked,” as Alcântara slips into their mind, subtly evoking unease—crafting a crystalline cacophony that requires a dynamic eye and a “bionic” ear to grasp its elusive essence.

I am hypnotized.

Choreographies for the eye, gaze after gaze, I dance upon her works like a butterfly in search of its favorite flower.

My hearing and vision are actively stirred, pulling me into a paradoxical dimension… windows open and present me with a feminine figure, vulnerable and surprised—surprised by indecent, intrusive gazes. Gazes that, driven by obsession, sneak in, blinded by the darkness of impetuous desire.

Now a sick and uncontrollable desire grows within me… discomfort rises, I suffer for her, my head explodes, and my ears ring as if my brain cannot process the image confronting me.

I feel ill—I can’t write anymore, I suffer, I feel nauseated… I am overwhelmed. I want her. I want her to be mine.

I’m unwell—I can’t… my eyes can no longer follow the narrative. The further I go, the more abstract it becomes—everything turns black. There’s little space for her… only her arm remains.

Roses, muddied by the darkness of murky and dreadful thoughts, fight for space in a reflective dimension with no reflection. I’m there but I can’t see myself—but I swear I’m here—I feel myself, and I’m ashamed… I search for myself in the darkness of deep anguish. I want her, but I want the rose—her rose-colored lips.

I want only her—my rose, tainted by the gaze of others… I’m lost. It shouldn’t have ended like this… I dissolve into space and I was only meant to write… now everything is black—but she remains— rose-mouth.

-Cristiano Raimondi

THE COLLECTION presents Stalker, the first solo exhibition by Luisa Alcântara, at Yehudi Hollander-Pappi. Featuring five new works — enameled reliefs, tar, oil paintings, and audio guides in different languages — Alcântara transforms the gallery into a false museum that dramatizes persecution as both language and
omnipresent form.

The concept of stalking is approached as a concrete experience of surveillance, but also as a metaphor for the conditioning of subjectivity, operated by the normative gaze of society. Here, being watched means losing control of one’s own image.

My image is no longer mine — it’s yours.

That’s how the journey begins. The image of the same woman appears twice under threat of domination — either startled in Stalker I or trying to hide in Stalker II. The stalker, though never seen — without face, body, or name — maintains an absolute presence. It acts in the fissures of the reliefs, in the manipulation of perception, in the fragmented body, in the invention of a distorted version of the represented subject. Traces of a stealthy omnipresence channel the violence of surveillance into its effects: displacement, despair, and the loss of self.

In a kind of theater, where the stage is the exhibition room itself, artifice matters: the carvings reveal roses but hide drywall compound; light beams are simulated in both the images and the environment; the oil painting shows the protagonist but doesn’t solve the enigma. The rose, a recurring element, is flower, wound, symbol of idealized love, and also a reference to war. Thus, it runs through the exhibition as the artist’s avatar — at times ornament, at times weapon — resisting erasure.

THE COLLECTION represents this fabricated institution that is not neutral — it is the artist’s accomplice and an agent of mediation. The audio guides, in turn, do more than accompany the works: they activate new layers of reading, opening space for multiple interpretations.

Among fragments, tiles, and the shadows of a labyrinth-trench, a tragic laugh emerges — humor and perversity marked by the experience of becoming someone else after trauma. What Stalker proposes is not the disappearance of pain, but the possibility of recreating one’s own image through the accumulation of experiences — a process in which the reconfiguration of parts generates a new whole. In the ecstasy of the rose returning to the stage in Stalker III, a new persona is announced — not innocent, but whole.

-Marina Woisky