Raphaela Melsohn (1993) is interested in constructing objects and spaces that imply the presence of our bodies, provoking alternatives through collaboration, contamination, and non-hierarchization. Cracks, flows, holes, organic forms, and footprints present in her works strain and reconfigure social and spatial norms.

She holds a master’s degree in visual arts from Columbia University (2022) and a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from FAAP (2016). Her solo exhibitions include Cortando linha se faz espaço, Galeria LABOR (2024); Uma casa feita de chão, Marli Matsumoto (2023); and Investigações em VIDEO: registro, deslocamento do olhar e FORMAS DE PENSAR, MIS (2016). Group shows include Nada acontece duas vezes (duo with Pedro França); Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra (2025); After Eden, RGR (2024); Antes e Agora, Longe e Aqui Dentro, Museu Oscar Niemeyer (2024); and “Por muito tempo acreditei ter sonhado que era livre” Arte Atual, Instituto Tomie Ohtake (2022). She has been an artist-in-residence at SURO (MX), Frans Masereel Centrum (BE), AZ West (US), YBYTU (BR), Pivô (BR), and Red Gate Residency (CH). In 2022, she was commissioned to create a public work related to Hélio Oiticica’s Subterranean Project at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York.

REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT #1 (2024) is composed of six ceramic pieces bearing the fingerprints left by the artist’s repetitive hand movements. In Mehlson’s words:

“I repeat repeat repeat my fingers in the clay until the columns rise.
When raw, the instruction is: 20 cm in diameter, 1.70 tall.
Again and again.
Same clay, different days, different temperatures. Hand and body tired, sometimes.
A list of verbs always seems to accompany, but is limited to initial and final instructions.
I make six, because six is a set that offers enough possibilities. We assemble and reassemble together, building distinct spaces to move through.
Open ducts, constant flows.
I’ve heard they resemble cocoons, shelter and passage modules.
The positive of the fingers remains there as a trace of the gesture I repeat repeat repeat.”