M+B is pleased to present Cement and Water, an exhibition of new works by Laís Amaral. This is the artist's first solo show with the gallery. The exhibition opens September 24, 2022 and will run through October 22, 2022 with an opening reception on Saturday, September 24 from 6 to 8 pm. Amaral's research on the effects of environmental collapse on contemporary society plays an integral role in her artwork. In recent years she has dedicated herself to observing how we relate to nature and the fragmentation that occurs when the human body is separated from its natural environment. For Amaral, the desertification of large portions of Brazil is a powerful metaphor for blanqueamiento, the “whitening” of its population, a project that has continued to affect the country’s social structures and its political, economic and cultural spheres. Water is a device of freedom that lies in opposition to the aridity of urban life in Brazil. The act of painting is a “leak”—a response to these desertifications, and a desire to “wet the ways of existing.” Finding pleasure in disobeying and contradicting the expectations of abstraction, her paintings create a sensitive language that deviates from a fixed linearity. Artist and craftswoman, Amaral incorporates a strong relationship to manual making with the addition of beads and other materials to her canvases, creating textures that become enmeshed with the build-ups, marks, and scrapes that make up the surfaces of her works.