David Elia. SOLO Program Exhibition at TAL Tech Art Lab
The SOLO Program Exhibition marks the conclusion of David Elia’s artist residency at TAL Tech Art Lab in Rio de Janeiro. Curated by Gabriela Maciel, the exhibition presents a new body of work developed during Elia’s time in the residency programme.
Exhibition opening Saturday, 28 February 2026, Casa Caminhoá, Rua Caminhoá 36, Horto, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Developed during his 2026 residency at TAL Tech Art Lab in Rio de Janeiro, David Elia’s first solo exhibition in Brazil unfolds as a profound intersection between art, science, memory and life. Transforming historical archives and organic materials into contemporary narratives, Elia challenges perceptions of the past and the ways it continues to shape the present
David Elia Untitled (ref: Alameda de Palmieras) | 2026 | Cyanotype and vinyl paint on Canson Montval paper 270g/m2 | 164x 150 cm | Photo: Gabi Carrera
The central work of the exhibition is a large-scale cyanotype with saturated blues, which reflects on the complex politics of Brazilian modernisation and the silenced bodies embedded within its historical imagery. Through this process, Elia unites the technical and the poetic, translating digital RGB codes into the historical language of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour (1814), fusing the rigidity of measurement with human sensitivity.
This approach is rooted in Elia’s research on the 19th-century photographic archive of Marc Ferrez, whose image Alameda de Palmeiras serves as a conceptual point of departure. By translating the photograph into cyanotype and speculating on chromatic information lost to monochrome archives, the work proposes a dialogue between early photographic technologies and scientific systems of classification.
The exhibition also extends this exploration through the Sporangia Hybrida series, developed during the residency with plant materials collected from green corridors of the Mata Atlântica forest in Rio de Janeiro. Here, the forest becomes an active collaborator rather than merely a backdrop. Moving between macroscopic and microscopic scales, these works combine botanical elements with sporangic forms rendered in International Klein Blue, proposing a slower and more attentive gaze.
As curator Gabriela Maciel describes:
“David works in the intersections between arts, sciences and memory. His multidisciplinary practice blends modern and contemporary archives, field research in the Mata Atlântica forest of Rio de Janeiro, digital programs and analogue techniques of cyanotype and painting. Through a process of observing and cataloguing to constructing new narratives, the artworks unfold as critical views that resonate art and ecology as practices of care, to be felt and not merely be seen.”
Through these works, Elia positions art and ecology as interconnected practices of care. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with landscapes, archives and living systems not simply as visual experiences, but as spaces where memory, responsibility and imagination intersect.
David Elia. SOLO Program Exhibition at TAL Tech Art Lab. Photo: Gabi Carrera
About David Elia
David Elia (born in Rio de Janeiro, 1982) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice operates at the intersection of contemporary art, research and social design. His work investigates how materials, images and objects carry histories of ecosystems, territories, peoples and knowledge systems.
Moving between figuration and abstraction, object and sculpture, Elia constructs symbolic fields where ecology, politics and cultural memory become inseparable. Through color, visual rhythms and organic structures, his works engage with science, cartography, botany and historical processes of cataloguing nature, while expanding into poetic abstractions that connect matter, time and movement.
Projects such as Desmatamento present the forest as a wounded body, reflecting on deforestation and ecological loss while inviting responsibility in the face of the climate crisis. In the Urna collection, ceramic forms combined with Yawanawá beadwork evoke mourning and resilience, honoring Indigenous communities and their continuous struggle for preservation. The Xequere series introduces rhythm and ancestry, connecting nature with Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions and emphasising ecology as a collective, spiritual and sensorial practice.
Elia currently lives and works in France. His work is held in major international collections including the François Pinault Collection, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, the Elton John Art Collection and the Paula Cussi Latin American Art Collection. He has exhibited internationally in institutions and events such as the London Design Biennale, the London Design Festival and the Museum of Arts & Design in New York.
About TAL | Tech Art Lab
TAL Tech Art Lab is a cultural organization founded in 2011 that creates, produces and presents contemporary and transdisciplinary artistic projects in Brazil and internationally. Its activities include exhibitions, residencies, laboratories, festivals and cultural exchange programmes developed in collaboration with emerging and established artists, curators and producers.
Works developed through TAL programmes have been presented at major international institutions and events including the Venice Biennale, Coleção Berardo, Itaú Cultural, MAAT, Haus der Elektronischen Künste, MAM Rio de Janeiro, Museo Reina Sofía and the Getty Museum, among others.
The organization was founded and is directed by curator and artist Gabriela Maciel, whose practice focuses on contemporary and transdisciplinary art with a particular interest in the intersections between art, nature and technology. Through exhibitions, residencies, festivals and research projects across South America, Europe and Asia, Maciel develops platforms for experimental artistic practices and international cultural exchange.
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