Partners in Art is proud to support Aline Setton project If I could hold all the pieces, part of the exhibition Resonant Matter, taking place from the 19th of April to the 24th of May, 2025. This exhibition features Maria Esthela, Naomi Dodds and Sofia Escobar, with curatorial text by Erin Storus. This project will be on view at Collision Gallery.
“In If I could hold all the pieces, a suite of seven acrylic paintings, Setton explores the emotional landscape of resettlement. Some works depict familiar spaces – like the Toronto Reference Library, a site of early comfort – while others dissolve into abstraction: waves, stone, perhaps distant planets. Together, they form a fragmented collage of belonging across geographies. Architectural elements, including custom easels inspired by Lina Bo Bardi, frame the paintings as structural objects. These sculptural supports choreograph the viewer’s movement through the gallery, echoing the artist’s own negotiation of place, memory, and the subtle shifts in how we learn to inhabit the world.” (text by Erin Storus)
Aline Setton (b. 1993, Brazil) is a Latin American artist and first-generation Canadian resident. Her studies in architecture and experiences in different countries serve as the basis for her research on the built environment and the dialogues between body, object, architecture and landscape. Her practice focuses on paintings and collages, in which she recreates labyrinthine compositions through the fragmentation of archival and personal images. Her interest lies in combining information that simulates a state of simultaneity, reflecting on the existence of paradoxical events across a multitude of spaces. Characterized by the use of multiple perspectives that accentuate illusions of depth, her paintings are created with the intention of inviting the observer to enter the spaces depicted. Seeking to engage the viewer as an active participant, she extends beyond the confines of the surface, creating three-dimensional sculptural works and site-specific installations using a variety of media.
Setton’s work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and has been featured in the solo exhibitions: Patamares, Galeria Clube Paulistano, São Paulo, Brazil (2025); Interiores, Galeria Murilo Castro, São Paulo, Brazil (2024) and Lupa, Galeria Ap’Arte, Porto, Portugal (2019). She has participated in group exhibitions including: Tropi-X, Museum of London, Canada (2025); Ser & Estar, Duran Contemporain, Montreal, Canada (2025); Mimese, Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2024); Mar, Rio, Fonte, Galeria Karla Osorio, Brasília, Brazil (2023); Gaia International Art Biennial, Portugal (2021); Drifting into Abstraction, Ryan Joseph Gallery, Denver, USA (2021); Making Spaces, Sur Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2020); and in 2022, she created the site-specific work Plan View: a look into the eye of a building for Art Nest, Toronto City Hall, Canada.
Photo credit: Nathan Cyprys
