Paula Turmina (b. 1991) is a Brazilian artist who lives and works in London. She received a BA in Fine Art Painting at the Wimbledon College of Fine Arts in 2016 and is a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art in 2021, receiving an MA in Fine Art. Her works guides the viewer into otherworldly images of red, barren terrains inhabited by the characters who interact with the nature surrounding them.
Paula is a multidisciplinary artist, her portfolio involving painting, printmaking, analogue films, and writing. Her use of the colour red stemmed from the natural pigment of a stone brought from Brazil, allowing her to explore something new and experiment with the colour. Through this earthly material, she emphasizes the process of painting landscapes that reflect on humanity’s relationship with the earth.
Paula’s constant hunger for knowledge plays a significant role in the creation of her works, looking to philosophical concepts of humanity and science fiction to address our role in climate change and its impact. With influences ranging from science fiction writers to Brazilian indigenous leaders and Surrealist artists, she creates notions of time and narrates mankind’s relationship with the earth, driven from her own experiences of living in the Brazilian countryside and reflecting on the country’s colonial history.
Her work has been exhibited in group shows such as ‘In transit, our memory fragments’ at Chelsea Space (London, 2022), ‘The Red Room’ at Berntson Bhattacharjee Gallery (London, 2022), ‘Wish Lush’ at Kravtiz Contemporary (London, 2022) and ‘Decomposition and Fetish’ at Vivian Caccuri Atelier (Rio de Janeiro, 2022), ‘Spiral Trap’ at Lewisham Art House (London, 2021), ‘In Reverie’ at Acava Studios (London, 2021), ‘The Land of No Evil’ at Offshoot Gallery (London, 2019), ‘Neo Norte’ at Fundacion Cultural de Providencia (Santiago, Chile, 2018) and ‘The Six Senses’ at Galeria Melissa (New York, 2018).
She was awarded a residency program with Winsor & Newton in collaboration with The Fine Art Collective in 2019. She is also the recipient of the Zsuzsi Roboz Scholarship with the Chelsea Arts Club Trust.