It may be surprising to learn that Fernanda Gomes’s career began in the late 1980s, when in Brazil, as elsewhere, the artistic scene was dominated by neo-expressionist painting. Some of her objects may be handmade, and even handpainted, but there is nothing demonstrative about them. Instead of flaunting an ostensive physicality, they evoke intimacy—a line of white cotton thread patiently wrapped around two tiny nails—and draw one’s attention to the prolonged and delicate processes both of their making and of their placement alongside each other. One is reminded of Susan Stewart’s