To understand Simone Momente’s work on the Teatro Amazonas, one
must first grasp that the artist doesn’t depict places—she weaves
memories. In her creative journey, architectural icons like Copan and the
Eiffel Tower became pretexts to explore the passage of time and affection.
But with the Amazon, the call was different. It was the echo of an old
dream, nurtured by a childhood fascination with nature. It was her father,
reciting Gonçalves Dias—"My land has palms, where the Sabiá sings"—who
planted the seed of a connection that now blooms into art.
This work, then, emerges from the convergence of personal memory and
collective
imagination.
In
Simone’s
vision,
the
Teatro
Amazonas
transcends architecture to become a character with its own “voice,
presence, and gaze.” It isn’t a building she paints; it’s an entity she
interprets. Through her collage language, layering paper and watercolor,
she presents us with a guardian that feels, laughs, and cares for the
interaction of its people. The stage transforms into a portal, and the
European opulence of the building is embraced—almost surrendered—by
the ancestral force that surrounds it.
In the composition, the theater is wrapped in waves and leaves, as if the
forest itself were claiming it, drawing a new pact between culture and
territory. The palette isn’t decorative; it tells myths. Reds and greens
summon the Curupira, the shape of the Victoria Regia evokes the legend
of Naiá, and the wet colors pulse with the life of the river flowing through
bodies and time. Simone doesn’t illustrate; she summons fragments of
ancestral stories that resist being forgotten.
The silence in her work isn’t absence—it’s density. It’s the sound of what
can only be perceived in stillness, an echo of the roots themselves. In this
creative process, the artist admits to being carried by the energy of the
forest as one might feel a river flowing through the body—in waves,
curves, and flow. Her art, deeply intuitive, invites us to feel with the same
respect one takes when walking through the forest.