Sonia Gomes has created a forma guarda uma vida, 2025, especially for Whitechapel Gallery to accompany the exhibition Lygia Clark: The I and the You, 2 Oct 2024 – 12 Jan 2025.

Sonia Gomes’ edition for Whitechapel Gallery originated as a drawing, translated by the artist into a digital pigment print with hand cut elements. Gomes’ work is characterised by a deep engagement with the creation of layers and voluminosity, which reflect her interest in materiality and transformation. When Sonia's and Lygia Clark's practice encounters, we perceive that both artists share an intent to deconstruct and reconstruct forms, with repetition serving as a process for unravelling visual language.

In a forma guarda uma vida (translating in English to ‘the form holds a life’), we encounter three circles that appear to move in a delicate choreography, intersecting and entwining, as if embodying a dance of creation and dissolution. The tension between containment and liberation is palpable as the forms press against the paper's boundaries, hinting at their desire to transcend the flat plane. This is particularly evident when Sonia cuts into one of the circles, introducing a dimensional shift that breathes life into the work. By breaking through the surface, she invites the viewer to consider the piece not just as a drawing but as an object on the verge of sculptural existence, evoking a dialogue between two-dimensionality and the spatial experience of three dimensions.

The interplay of unfinished forms and voluminosity speaks to a broader exploration of life itself—fluid, evolving, and never fully contained—echoing the Brazilian tradition of Neo-Concretism, where the boundaries between art and life dissolve. Much like Clark's, Sonia's work reflects a desire to escape formal constraints and enter a space where art becomes lived, tactile, and deeply relational.