Petricor

Petricor — petrichor — is the name for the smell of earth that rises when rain falls on dry soil or on stone. The word joins the Greek petra, stone, and ichor, the fluid that ran in the veins of the gods. The artist came to the title in a conversation with a friend who read the project text — and it names well what the series is after: the moment when mineral and living trade places.

The seven images were made on walks through the damp forest, attentive to the microsystems that share energy and live in constant exchange. Roots taking over a ruined wall, cracked stone in black and white, a window opened in a lichen-covered wall, and three fungi seen so close they become landscape: the speckled cap, the fanned gills, the orange form that seems to sprout from the dark.

For the artist the project was also a return to what she calls a “non-virtual” connection: the exchange of energy with the nature that feeds us and that we are suffocating. Petricor was shown in the group exhibition SUAVE coisa nenhuma, curated by Carolina Mikoszewski, at Adizza Prado Galeria in 2024, as mineral pigment prints on cotton paper.