The exhibition iTa LíTica Barroca, at Galeria Millan, brings to São Paulo the first film—a medium-length feature—by the Minas Gerais-born painter Niura Bellavinha. Entitled NháNhá, the work is the central focus of the artist’s new solo exhibition and is projected onto the main gallery wall.

Written and directed by Bellavinha in collaboration with curator Alberto Saraiva, NháNhá reveals the artist’s painting process. Filmed in the Brazilian countryside, specifically in Minas Gerais, the work once again explores situations in which air becomes the support for pigment—in this case, dust—which, as a dry pigment, merges with light to become a fleeting, poetic, and tragic painting.

“NháNhá” was a nickname once used in Brazil for housemaids, but it was also the affectionate name by which Niura’s grandmother was known. Here, the artist transforms the viewer’s gaze and relationship with painting, departing from traditional canvases, paints, and brushes to give form to her art through other means. The mining towns of Minas Gerais—depopulated by the ongoing, destructive operations of mining companies—form the backdrop for the work: landscapes turned almost desert-like, crossed by dense dust, becoming the artist’s support as she develops her painting through time, air movement, and light.

Bellavinha sought to create static frames gradually enveloped by layers of dust, like an ephemeral painting slowly taking shape. NháNhá draws the viewer into a unique vision of painting, thanks in part to the masterful sound design by the duo O Grivo, in which what is seen is reframed and re-signified. The sound follows the film with delicate subtlety, revealing what lies beyond the visible through noises and interferences. The small house chosen by Niura “speaks,” while the machines emit sounds of destruction in a subtle and intimate tone.

“The surroundings become a painting, and in turn, transform my own painting into film. I like to say this work brings the viewer back to the ‘time of painting’,” says the artist.

The exhibition also features a set of works ranging from aerial materials, such as dust and meteorites, to soapstone—used in Aleijadinho’s sculptures and also native to Minas Gerais. Bellavinha recreates connections with Baroque materials and matter, updating this tradition with a powerful contemporary gaze on its form and formation.

The show includes photographs (Articulados), paintings on canvas, and drawings in which the pigments were handcrafted in the artist’s studio from soils and stones collected from various regions of Minas Gerais, including Itabira, Ouro Preto, Mariana, Ferros, Passárgada, and Jequitinhonha.