brunelle dias primbs
mysterium rationis
horse phases, 2026 (detail)
Grace presents mysterium rationis by brunelle dias primbs.
In mysterium rationis, brunelle dias primbs enacts a reciprocal touch between image and world, where paintings emerge as both witness and offering. The works gather souvenirs of lived and inherited experience, as memory and image oscillate across the canvas. Shaped by the conditions of tourism and family travel, the “old world” empire is reframed through faith, migration, and inheritance. Within this shifting ground, dias primbs traces a consciousness unfolding between reverence and critique.
brunelle dias primbs (India, Aotearoa New Zealand) is a painter who attends to the figure and its painterly ground. Often diaristic, her practice explores ideas of temporality, sacredness, and the interconnection between the self and its environment. dias primbs holds a Master of Visual Arts from AUT School of Art and Design.
Recent exhibitions include Dreaming from Afar (Gus Fisher Gallery, 2026); A Moment to Hold (The Arts House Trust, 2025); aaj kal (CoCA, 2024); yahaan (Corban’s Estate Art Centre, 2024); kiss taraf (The Art Paper Office, 2023); soft protest (Play_Station, 2023); and the way things are (The Physics Room, 2022).
low hanging fruit, 2026 & horse phases, 2026 (installation)
low hanging fruit, 2026 Oil on canvas 350 x 450
horse phases, 2026 Oil on canvas
900 x 900
horse phases, 2026 (detail)
hotline, 2026 Oil on canvas 950 x 950
hotline, 2026 (detail)
hotline, 2026 & souvenir ii: cherub feature, 2026 (installation)
souvenir ii: cherub feature, 2026 Oil on canvas
300 x 260
but the flesh, 2026 Oil on canvas
850 x 850
but the flesh, 2026 (detail)
plastic fresco iii: is this it?, 2026 & souvenir i: rapture, 2026 (installation view)
plastic fresco i: rapture, 2026 Oil on canvas
900 x 1500
plastic fresco i: rapture, 2026 (detail)
plastic fresco iii: is this it?, 2026 Oil on ready-made canvas
400 x 520
plastic fresco iii: is this it?, 2026 (detail)
souvenir i: tourist trap, 2026 (installation)
souvenir i: tourist trap, 2026 Oil on ready-made canvas 300 x 225
plastic fresco ii: capture, 2026 & God of my mothers, 2026
plastic fresco ii: capture, 2026 Oil on ready-made canvas 500 x 400
God of my mothers, 2026 Oil on board
230 x 300
Not the ray that strikes but the ray that shines is a commissioned essay by Jonathan Rankin:
“…So too the title of the show, mysterium rationis, plays with the ancient words uttered by the priest during the traditional Latin Mass (mysterium fidei! - the mystery of faith!). This decision by dias primbs acts as an invitation to face the limits of human knowing whilst gesturing toward the possibility of some mystery, perhaps the grace of a homecoming, waiting within the works. Born and raised in the Catholic tradition, dias primbs returns to the religion of her mothers and grandmothers in mysterium rationis, not as a devotee but neither as a sceptic. Instead, dias primbs explores the edges between belief and unbelief, sacred and profane…”
Full text available here.
Please contact the gallery here to receive a catalogue for mysterium rationis.