I
Page 1
Charcoal, oil pastel, dry pastel, acrylic and collage on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
The
Studio
Codex
An artist's book.
A living document.
A room that writes itself.
Twelve pages.
Used truck tarpaulin.
89 × 55 inches each.
Based on the original sketchbooks of the artists.
From the studio of Dabus & Thibes, a sketchbook unfolds at architectural scale. Twelve weathered tarp pages strung through the gallery as if the room itself were turning. A meditation on color, matter, and the everyday gesture of beginning again.
§ 01 Project Statement
On the
Codex
An artist's sketchbook is a living document of the creative process: a space of experimentation, reflection, and risk. It is where affective memories, lived realities, and imagination coexist. More than a preparatory tool, it is an everyday practice that embodies action and feeling at once.
The Studio Codex takes this understanding as its core. Developed from the duo's sketchbook research, the work explores the boundaries between sketchbook and artist's book. It draws on Goethe's theory of color, Steiner's anthroposophical thought, and studies of form, composition, and material. Is a sketch art, or only the breath before the work? The codex lets that breath grow wide enough to walk around, until the sketch is no longer a step toward the work and becomes the art itself.
Made with used truck tarps, the book carries traces of lost narratives embedded in the surface itself, activating ideas of memory, transformation, and metamorphosis. Its twelve pages evoke symbolic systems from spiritual traditions, reinforcing art as a living, transformative process.
§ 02 Gallery Installation
On the floor.
Walk around it.
The codex lies open directly on the concrete floor of the gallery. No plinth, no vitrine, no rope. Visitors circle it, crouch beside it, and turn each tarpaulin sheet by hand. The book takes the room as its furniture; the room takes the book as its ground.
Click the spread to turn a page · 1:1 simulation
Dimensions
Each page 89 × 55 in (226 × 140 cm). Open spread 110 × 89 in (279 × 226 cm). Used cargo tarpaulin, twelve sheets.
Interaction
Visitors turn the pages by hand. They walk around the book, crouch beside it, and lift each sheet from either side.
Conservation
The weathered tarpaulin tolerates handling. The book rests flat on the floor; pages are turned slowly, one spread at a time.
§ 03 Material
From the
road, to the
wall.
The project is inspired by the original sketchbooks created along the journey of the artists, notebooks carried from city to city, filled with studies, diagrams and notes. The codex enlarges what those pages first held.
§ 04 Process / Source Material
Before the book,
the weather.
Each page begins as a discarded truck tarpaulin, its surface already inscribed by weather, freight, and time. Before it ever enters the studio, the tarp is left outdoors for weeks, pinned to grass, exposed to rain, sun, dust, fallen leaves, and the weight of standing water. Weather edits the surface first; the artists work with what remains. We do not erase these marks, we listen to them. The codex is, at its base, a record of other journeys made visible.
Field stage · open-air weathering · 2–8 weeks per sheet
The tarp is staked flat on the lawn and abandoned to the weather. Rainwater pools at every crease; leaves stain the surface with tannin; sun bleaches the pigment unevenly. The grid of folds becomes the page's first composition.
Returned to the studio, the tarp is dried, brushed, and measured. Original grommets are preserved as registration marks; existing creases dictate the page geometry. From here it becomes a leaf in the codex. Recto, verso, stitched into the spine.
§ 05
Pages
I to X
II
Page 2
Charcoal, oil pastel, dry pastel on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
III
Page 3
Charcoal, dry pastel and acrylic paint on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
IV
Page 4
Charcoal, oil pastel, dry pastel and acrylic paint on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
V
Page 5
Charcoal, oil pastel, dry pastel, enamel, acrylic, linoleum and assemblage. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
VI
Page 6
Charcoal, ink, acrylic paint, assemblage on green and brown used tarp. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
VII
Page 7
Charcoal, oil pastel, dry pastel on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
VIII
Page 8, Cochineal
Charcoal, oil pastel, beeswax, cochineal pigment on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
IX
Page 9
Charcoal, oil pastel, dry pastel and acrylic on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
X
Page 10
Charcoal, dry pastel and collage on green tarp canvas. 89 × 55 in, 2025.
"In life, we often wait for the masterpiece that may never come. Perhaps the true masterpiece is the collection of all our sketches."
§ 06 Bio & CV
Dabus
& Thibes
An artist duo.
Fernanda Dabus, from Santa Maria, Brazil, and Cecilia Thibes, from Curitiba, Brazil, met in Tokyo in 2017. That same year they exhibited together at the Brazilian Embassy in Tokyo and led a workshop for the Brazilian-Japanese school near Tokyo. Based in Miami, USA, working together since then.
Education & Training
- Cecilia Thibes, Economics - FCM - Rio de Janeiro · Post-graduation in Art Therapy, Rio de Janeiro · Art Therapy - Dr. Hauschka, São Paulo · Fine Arts - Beppe Assenza Art School, São Paulo · Remedial Education, Rudolf Steiner College · Docent in Tore · Artistic Therapy School, São Paulo · Anthroposophy · Studium Jahr at the Goetheanum, Switzerland.
- Fernanda Dabus, Psychology · UCPEL - Pelotas · Sociedade Psicanalítica Sigmund Freud, Pelotas · Escola Paulista de Medicina, São Paulo · Instituto Sedes Sapientiae, São Paulo · Saint Louis Psychoanalytic Institute, Missouri · Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, Massachusetts · Fine Arts - Miami.
Solo Exhibitions
- 2024, Emporium Brazil Design, Miami, FL · Nov 6 - Dec 6
Collective Exhibitions
- 2026, MUCIC, Museo de la Ciudad de Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
- 2025, DORCAM, Doral Contemporary Art Museum, Remorph: Unending, Miami, FL · Apr-Jul
- 2023-Present, Emporium Brazil Design, Miami, FL · Permanent Exhibition
- 2021-2024, Casa Brazil Miami, Miami, FL
- 2022-2023, The House of Arts Gallery, Miami, FL
- 2021, Out of the Box Pop-Up Art Show, Wynwood Walls, Miami, FL
- 2020, Projeto Arte no Consulado, Miami Brazilian Consulate, Miami, FL
- 2018, Unwritten Stories, Miami, FL
- 2018, Sorority, Miami, FL
- 2017, Art Brazil, Miami, FL
- 2017, Expo Art Brazil-Japan, Brazilian Embassy in Tokyo, Japan
Art Fairs
- 2018, 2019, 2021, Red Dot Miami, Miami Art Basel Week
- 2019, Art Expo New York, New York, NY
Features & Media
- 2025, Tidelli Miami
- 2022-2024, Molteni&C, Miami Design District
- 2022-2024, Saccaro USA, Miami Design District
- 2024, Comunidade Médicos e Poetas, Podcast
- 2024, Papo sobre Tela Project, Podcast
- 2024-Present, Art Columnist, Collecta Art Magazine
Awards
- 2019, Focus Brazil Visual Arts Award for Painting (Mixed Media)
Contact
- dabusfernanda@gmail.com
- ceciliastaubli@gmail.com
- @dabusthibes
Community & Initiatives
- 2017, Workshop at Colégio Pitágoras, Japan
- 2017, Workshop at Escola Gente Miúda, Japan
- 2018-Present, Co-founders, Atelier Without Borders Association (NGO)
- 2022-Present, Art workshops oriented on Anthroposophy principles
- 2022-Present, Art workshops at DabusThibes Studio, Miami
- 2023, Art education workshop - Pinecrest Elementary - Career Day
- 2023, Art workshops at The House Gallery, Miami
- 2023-2024, Art history and practice workshops at Imagine Arts Academy, Miami
- 2023-2024, Art education workshop at Morning Star - Miami
- 2024, Art workshop at Emporium B Gallery, Miami
- 2024-Present, Specialized workshops for architects
- 2026, Florense Experience: Food for the Body, Art for the Soul
- 2026, Brazilian Art workshop at Ransom Everglades School
- 2026, Donation to the Office of the Provost, UNESP Art Collection - São Paulo
- 2026, Donation to the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida