Bracher, Elisa

Bracher, Elisa

1965

Elisa Bracher graduated in Fine Art from the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP) in São Paulo, completing an additional course in metal engraving techniques with Evandro Carlos Jardim during her final year (1989). Her first solo exhibition took place in 1991, with work shown simultaneously at the Fundação Bienal and at the Centro Cultural São Paulo. In the same year she was awarded the Premio Brasília at the XII Salão Nacional de Artes Plasticas. Bracher began to work with wood in the later 1990s, and went on to produce monumental sculpture using whole tree trunks. Her sculptural practice continues to develop in a series of individual works, each of which is placed in a square, park or other public place. In response to this series, a monograph on her work, entitled Wood on Wood and written by Rodrigo Naves, was published in 1998. While working as a sculptor Bracher continues to produce engravings; these are characterised by dense black shapes - abstracted from (often urban) landscapes and contrasted with the white of the paper; they are exhibited unframed and closely grouped. Entering the practice of constructing public sculpture, Bracher became concerned with questions of art's accessibility, and she subsequently set up a teaching studio, giving lessons in carpentry, sewing, cooking and loom weaving, and open to young people living in one of Sao Paulo's favelas (in the Ceará neighbourhood, where her own studio is located).