Ropes, nails and the genius: the "ciclotramas" of Janaina Mello Landini

In my articles, I always try to show unusual or unconventional sides of art, aesthetic manifestations that deviate from classical pictorial applications or similar. Because everything, in the end, can be somehow "artistic" in the eyes of an observer who is captured, fascinated, involved. I often speak of astonishment, of the very fascination of astonishment itself, and I think that it is precisely this that makes us say that who has created a certain work is an artist, the moment when, in front of a physical expression of creativity, we are stuck, we stop to stare, to contemplate, and we remain fascinated and incredulous, fallen in love and gratitude to the person who has managed to create such a work.

Personally, I love abstract art, contemporary art, works that do not represent or reproduce something specific or real, like our artist Karin Baedeker, check her works out here.

I like the representations that allow viewers to open their minds, to see in the work what they can imagine or dream. I am even more fascinated and surprised when this amazement is created using simple ways because to excite with a common object, takes brilliance.

Therefore, I want to introduce you to the talented Brazilian artist Janaina Mello Landini and her "ciclotrama" works.

Visit her website and her Instagram page @janainamello.

Ciclotrama 115 "writing"

I was thunderstruck at first glance by these works that contain, essentially, just a rope. A large rope, and thousands of nails, and the brilliant vision of the person who transformed these elements into poignant works.

The definition "ciclotrama" is a word coined by the artist herself, to represent the cyclical nature of the forms that are repeated in her installations, and the origin weave (trama) of her works. Her works start precisely from a rope, which is gradually untied, turned step by step in increasingly fine weaves until you get to the single filament, which is fixed to the wall or canvas with a nail.

This leads to the creation of very peculiar forms, whether the branches are developed on a single plane, or in space. The single terminal strands are always stretched and this gives a lot of visual strength, freeing the rope from gravity, making multiple interpretations possible.

Ciclotrama 50 "wind"

Janaina Mello Landini has a degree in architecture and has studied physics and mathematics, and undoubtedly her works have some relationship with these subjects, we can think of fractals, where individual shapes are repeated continuously on a smaller scale, as happens with the filaments, or mathematical series, functions that lead to well-determined sequences of numbers, as is the number of filaments that grows with the distance from the surface, an aspect that the artist has emphasized in the work "Ciclotrama 177 - Fibonacci" where she reports for each joint the number of filaments that compose it.

Ciclotrama 177 "fibonacci"

Perhaps the attraction we feel for these forms is that they lead us back to a pattern that is widespread in nature, think of our circulatory system, the nervous system, the delta of a river, trees, the veins of leaves. But we can also see abstract shapes, color shades, strange creatures, spider webs, some shapes can also take on a disturbing aspect, of abandonment, or imprisonment.

Ciclotrama 125 "aglomeracao"

Ciclotrama 36 "labirynthe"

Ciclotrama 172 "palindrome"

So that's the art, the ability to communicate with a simple string and a great idea all of this and who knows what else, because that's just what I personally recognize, and I love it. And what about you? What captures your attention in the ciclotrama?