Karine Mageste transforms painting into narrative, exploring the past, present, and future as parts of the same line. Her work carries the nuances of memory, identity, and science fiction, creating visual diaries that unfold like layers of a personal and artistic process. The transition in genre played an essential role in her journey, making her art a space for investigation into transformation and self-perception. We spoke with the artist about her inspirations, processes, and how her research manifests in each canvas.
Karine explores temporal intersections in her works, creating a narrative that blends memories, feelings, and projections. For her, at least for now, painting is an emotional and reflective diary, a way to organize everyday thoughts and transform them into symbolic images.
MashUp: What attracts you to this intersection of past, present, and future?
Karine Mageste: I see the flow of life in this timeline, it feels like we are constantly accessing things from the past, memories, and thoughts about the future, and all of that influences the present a lot. And then, in the middle of these thoughts, very strong ideas come, and I think, “Wow, I need to capture this.” How do I build an image out of this? […] This parallel between present, future, and past is very much together in the formation of our being, the being we choose to be every day. We wake up today with a mood, and today I will be this person. And then you access memories from the past and think about projections of the future.
This continuous flow of time and memory reflects the way Karine constructs her compositions, blending nostalgic elements with science fiction inspirations, a genre that has fascinated her since childhood. “Science fiction is a film genre that I really love… it’s very present in my work because it deals with this issue of the future, the present, and the past.”
Self-representation has become an essential part of her work. Inspired by her personal experience and cultural references, Karine places herself as the protagonist of her canvases, questioning stereotypes and exploring her identity in constant transformation.
MashUp: How was the process of expressing yourself through art during your gender transition?
Karine: My transition made my work transition into a kind of diary, and that’s when I started using shape, color, and composition in a way that allowed me to establish stories, stories of periods. I had already started developing a mastery of color, a mastery of form, and I could now expand to something more, you know? I started working with the background not just as something to hold up the figure, but as something that would interact with the figure as well. I’ve always worked a lot with figures. I started treating the background and the figure in a pictorial way, the same, you know? With the same responsibility.
Before, her figures were flat, separated from the background. Today, background and figure interact organically, reflecting the complexity of her personal journey.
The Melancolias series explores a nostalgic scenario with science fiction influences. Inspired by films like Alien, Karine creates compositions that mix melancholy and fantasy, reflecting her memories and emotions.
MashUp: You depict aliens in some of your works. Why?
Karine: Because when I watched Alien as a child, I saw Ripley, and she was a woman with those lieutenant-like attitudes… She expects the protocol to be followed and has this attitude that, in some cases, is authoritarian, which for a man in a 1979 movie is completely normal. So, when I was a child and saw this movie, one of the first things that caught my attention was the protagonist and the story itself. It’s a creature from space, and the only mechanism it has is to survive and proliferate its species. So, the way the creature develops and multiplies is almost like rape, you know? And the film is full of allegories, and I started analyzing that. When I made this painting, I was seeing a guy, and it was one of my first experiences post-transition. And I was finding everything very confusing, not understanding anything. I really felt like I was lost in the hallway of a spaceship, running from a creature.
The alien, then, becomes a metaphor for her personal experiences. This exploration goes beyond the theme of science fiction, revealing a symbolic play between the real and the imaginary, where past and future intersect in the same narrative plane.
Despite the futuristic aesthetic of some works, Karine also explores her cultural roots in the Morada dos Afetos series. With a nostalgic and emotional approach, the series celebrates family memories and emotional connections. “The morada dos afetos is divided into four: the first was a series of clouds, the second of nebulas, and then it unfolds with my mother, me, and my dog…”
This thematic plurality reflects Karine’s versatility in navigating between science fiction, nostalgia, and family affections, creating an emotional narrative. Always seeking to express herself, she also explores other formats beyond collage and painting. Currently, she is investigating the possibility of incorporating hinges into canvases, inspired by the aesthetics of pop-up books.
MashUp: What led you to explore hinges on canvases?
Karine: “I’ve always investigated pop-up books a lot, and I’ve always loved making pop-ups. The pop-up has this thing with paper, right? The ease of paper, the paper folds, sticks. I’ve always done a lot of that with watercolor. But then, I really wanted to do this with oil too. To investigate the possibility of something that folds, I put hinges on the canvases.”
Art is not just a form of expression, but a way of existing in the world. Her paintings are records of her personal journey, reflections on time, identity, and transformation. In her works, past, present, and future meet, creating a space for reflection and emotional connection. Her art is a constant investigation into what it means to exist and transform, exploring identities, affections, and memories with delicacy and depth.
