Matéria VivaLiving Matter

Matéria Viva explores the recurring structures that connect seemingly unrelated forms in nature. From neural networks and blood vessels to coastlines, tree roots and cosmic webs, fractal patterns reveal structures that repeat across scales.

Bianca Castro translates this visual language into abstraction through paintings made with organic pigments and other natural materials. Coffee, matcha, hibiscus, lavender and rooibos become colour, while their residues and chemical reactions contribute to the physical structure of the paintings.

Each colour is produced from a specific material batch and extraction, making every work materially singular. The paintings are also intentionally unstable. Light, humidity and chemical reactions continue to affect their colours over time.

Rather than treating change as deterioration, Matéria Viva considers impermanence as part of the work itself. The paintings exist somewhere between image and material, permanence and transformation, the microscopic and the cosmic.