Shirley Paes Leme

1955, Cachoeira Dourada, Brazil
Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil

Shirley Paes Leme

1955, Cachoeira Dourada, Brazil
Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil

Shirley Paes Leme (1955, Cachoeira Dourada, Brazil). Since the 1970s, the artist has produced works in different media, including installation, video, drawing, painting, sculpture and public works. Over the decades, the artist has been interested in the trail of fleeting and fluid things, such as smoke, light, soot, gunpowder, blood, pollen, fungus and many other organic materials.

After graduating from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil (1975-1978), Paes Leme received a fellowship from the Fulbright Foundation and started a master degree at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA (1983). She later moved to Berkeley, where started a doctorate program at the John F. Kennedy University (1986). Along with her artistic practice, the artist is also a theorist and a scholar and worked as a teacher at the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia and Faculdade Santa Marcelina. Actually she lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.

Her work has been exhibited extensively in museums and biennials, including: Lausanne Biennial; Poland Biennial; Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil; Bienal de La Habana, Cuba; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; MAM-Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil; Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil; Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux, France; Dragão do Mar Arte e Cultura, Fortaleza, Brazil; Sesc São Paulo, Brazil; Museu da Vale, Vitória, Brazil among others.

Her work can be found in important collections, such as: MAM-Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil; MAC-Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil; National Museum in Aalborg, Denmark; Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brazil; Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil; Gilberto Chateaubriand, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Inhotim, Minas Gerais, Brazil; Museu de Arte de Brasília, Brazil; Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará, Brazil; Patrícia Cisneiros, New York.