Annie Sandano

Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Annie Sandano has since lived in New Zealand and The USA, and completed a large portion of the study towards her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree abroad. The history and visual traditions of Brazil’s culture of display, in particular the orgiastic carnival processions of Rio de Janeiro, form the basis of her most recent body of work. Sandano is driven by an interest in the paradoxes, contradictions and ambivalence of carnival; she explores issues related to what is or is not considered pagan: a topic which leads to questioning legitimacy and authenticity within a social manifestation which incorporates both Christian and African forms of celebration and worship.

She aims to merge internal and external cultural factors: assembling, collating and hybridizing to reconfigure traditional visual vocabulary and re-invent conventional iconography.   Sandando references a multitude of elements typical to Brazilian culture: Among others the traditional woodcut techniques from the crudely made woodcut “Folhetim” papers from the Northeast, Christian religion in the altar-like arrangement, “Ama-de-leite” (wet nurses) from colonial times, and African Vodun Art of the slaves brought to Brazil from the Ivory Coast.

All of these elements fuse and operate in a strange harmony within the condensed and crazy time of carnival, marked by spectacle, the fervent veneration of icons, profanity and a commemoration of social groups which are usually marginalized.