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Upon arriving at the gallery's patio, even before entering the exhibition space, the visitor will find clues about the concept that pervades this first solo Carmela Gross at Vermelho.

Two perforations in the wall of the façade connect the area outside the building to the exhibition space within it, creating a direct flow between the public space of the city and that which constitutes the private place of the white cube. More than a simple alteration in the materiality of the locale, these two holes, which the artist has entitled 2 Buracos [2 Holes] (2012), reveal that the scope of Gross's action also includes the city.

Luz Del Fuego, a video from 2012, features documentary images of fires published in newspapers from 2007 to 2011. In the work, the image of fire serves as ... a narrative thread and points to radical transformations of a political and social nature.

In Vermelho's Room 1, Gross is presenting the work Escada de Emergência [Emergency Ladder] (2012). Constructed with green and red fluorescent light bulbs supported by metallic tripods, the work suggests a physical experience based on a visual one. Stripped of its practical use, the ladder refers to the symbolic universe of associated meanings.

The entire floor of Room 2 will be occupied by an installation composed of 280 nickel-plated cast brass pieces that Gross calls Répteis [Reptiles] (2012).

Entre Palavras [Among Words] (2012), a series of drawings made with graphite and enamel on pages of the Aurélio dictionary, occupies Room 3. In this work, the flexible figure of the snake serves as a metaphor for the word and its variations. By covering the entries on the dictionary's pages with the drawings of snakes, Gross articulates the power of the discourse with the animal's shrewdness.

At the Serpents exhibition, Carmela Gross presents three-dimensional constructions, light, drawings and digital collages that propose a shifting terrain untamable by space.