With great artistic freedom, Mesquita uses different metals, which she cuts, twists, rolls, and welds together. The various metals (brass, copper, stainless steel, or steel) are then collected and their raw surfaces blackened, burnished, oxidized, brushed, or chiselled. Unlike classical ways of showing sculptures, her cheerful and mischievous environments endow them with a great potential for fiction and imagination.
Geometric and anthropomorphic shapes, animal and mechanical figures, ritual objects, and archaeological finds, disaster scenes and dance parties – all of them populate these fixed tableaux, which then take on new life in stop-motion videos where Mesquita engages with the jerkily animated sculptures, taking on multiple identities. By occupying the Hangar à Bananes Galerie, Mesquita continues to explore the possibilities of a sculpture’s life in a metallic landscape made up of numerous metallic and hybrid surprises.