Romain Dumesnil: EXORAMA
A Gentil Carioca is pleased to present EXORAMA, Romain Dumesnil's first solo exhibition at the gallery in Rio de Janeiro. Drawing on a neologism coined by the artist that evokes a strange or "otherworldly" landscape, the exhibition brings together new installations and recent paintings that reveal his deep interest in the phenomenology of nature and the unexpected beauty that can emerge from its transformations.
Romain Dumesnil's practice is closely connected to the natural world and to the ecology of the invisible forces and materials that constitute it. Through installations, paintings, and videos, his work investigates the fundamental structures that connect the ordinary and the extraordinary, the natural and the artificial, the living and the inert, the organic and the geometric, in pursuit of an essentially hybrid reality.
"For EXORAMA, I brought together a body of work whose forms and premises embodied something I wanted to be fundamentally atmospheric and enigmatic. Throughout the preparation of the exhibition, I always had in mind a kind of altered reality, not spectacularly or irrefutably, but quite the opposite: something akin to a micro-disturbance, a temporary failure, a 'glitch' in reality. Something like a breach in matter and time that would allow us to glimpse the fabric or the reverse side of the world, and perhaps, by chance, its metamorphoses as well." — Romain Dumesnil
Romain Dumesnil (b. 1989) lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, where he studied at the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts (EAV Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro). In 2015, he co-founded the independent art space Átomos in Rio de Janeiro.
Across his work, installations, paintings, and videos come together to investigate the natural world and the ecology of its invisible forces and materiality. Bringing the natural and the artificial together, Dumesnil’s multifaceted practice draws us into a sensory experience shaped by delicate gestures, modest materials, and precarious balances, cultivating an understanding of the shifting, fluid nature of matter and reality.
His solo exhibitions include projects at Fundação Ema Klabin in São Paulo, Brazil; Centre Culturel 6B in Paris, France; and Temiorae Art Center in Daejeon, South Korea. In 2025, he participated in the group exhibition Concordar em Discordar at A Gentil Carioca in São Paulo, Brazil. He has also participated in group exhibitions and undertaken artist residencies at institutions including Pivô in São Paulo, Brazil; Villa Arson in Nice, France; Fundação Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre, Brazil; Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France; Oscar Niemeyer Museum of Contemporary Art in Curitiba, Brazil; and Fondation Fiminco in Paris, France.
