Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Spiders of Paradise

Maria Fernanda Cardoso is internationally renowned for using unconventional and organic materials to consider nature and its links to culture and science. Working across sculpture, photography, installation, video and performance, her work examines the connections and tensions between society and the natural world.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Spiders of Paradise presents new works from Cardoso’s Spiders of Paradise photographic series (2018–ongoing), alongside her acclaimed video work On the Origins of Art I-II (2016). Cardoso’s subject is the tiny Australian Maratus spider – measuring less than 5mm in size – and their unique, brightly-coloured abdomens, which form part of their elaborate mating rituals.

Bringing together science, art and nature, this exhibition celebrates the beauty of the natural world and reveals the sophisticated lives of creatures not usually witnessed.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Spiders of Paradise is an exhibition developed and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.