Ana e Mira : fios de escrita entre Ana Hatherly e Mira Schendel

Abstract

The present essay aims to investigate, with no intention of being exhaustive or categorical, the poetics of the artists Mira Schendel (1919-1988) and Ana Hatherly (1929-2015), trying to bring them closer through some central notions, such as: writing, gesture, letter, silence/emptiness/white, text/fabric, stain and illegibility. Both artists worked at the border of visual arts and poetry, image and writing, text and visuality. They shared a common desire for the between of image and writing; a poetic-visual thinking where to paint and to write – to think with one’s hands – is analogous to the work of Penelope, Ariadne and Arachne, ergo, to spin and to weave, to give form, manually, to existence. Finally, it is intended to put both artists in a possible love dialogue, opening small gaps – paths – that give view to new forms of seeing their works. This essay is a love letter.