Review on Tura Oliveira

Limp, Proken, and eviscerated, the figure in Tura Oliveira’s Wheel of Fortune (2025) is a tribute to Pyrrhic victory: the inevitable and equivocal success of martyrdom. The wheel in which the larger-than-life fabric puppet is entangled is part of a grain hoist built into the space, so the piece
is in effect site-specific; without the wheel, this would be an entirely different story. Looming over the shoulders of bystanders, the sense of the
absurd and ridiculous make the image easier to bear, and it is soft and pliable and abstract, which mitigates the horror. Horror is a major aspect of
martyrdom-and this piece references the particularly gruesome fate of Saint Catherine of Alexandria-and while in Christian Hagiography we are
guided by the narrative to condemn the cruelty of the oppressor, we also need to question the motives of the saint as well. Saint Catherine’s story
emphasizes the Pyrrhic side of the situation.