Redemption, healing. This is what drives my art, what brings me back to the easel day after day. Not doing it, is pain.
Still, my art is not painful. Like the oyster makes pearls out of sand, my intention as an artist is to transcend the pain into something beautiful and poetic. And maybe help the viewer transcend his own pain.
They are my pearls: they are not perfect but, to me, they have beauty in its imperfection. I consider a piece finished, when something resonates within.
Although I always felt drawn to arts, I come from a very success, pragmatic oriented family. Cognitive disciplines that lead to tangible income and jobs were encouraged. Activities that were not easily associated with those, were kindly discouraged. The need to focus on what would bring me success, and only on that, was drilled in me from an early age, so that I abandoned all arts and crafts one by one, to focus on my career as an engineer: my artistic fountain shrank, went down to a trickle, then dried all together.
I moved from Brazil to Luxembourg to further develop my engineering career. However, my new found family and friends valued the crafts I created as gifts. I started adding crafts back to my life. I slowly transitioned from crafts, art with specific purpose and use, to arts.
But it was after a personal life crisis that I learned how art was important for healing and to deal with my daily stress. I learned to transcend my “false” perfectionism, this feeling of insufficiency and inadequacy, into the real perfection: the understanding that the universe speaks through my own abilities and limitations. Although I remain attracted to the classic, I battle to channel my energy in creating something I consider beautiful in its imperfection. I try to accept that imperfection is not a failure, but a learning path. This is still a struggle. It may never go completely away, and I also accept that.
I am drawn to figurative painting, the whimsical, the magical, the symbolic. I seek to emulate the technic of the old masters. Although I have very limited knowledge and no formal education I use technics like grisaille, layering and glazing, so that a single painting is a superposition of several layers.
Although I can work with graphite, pastel and watercolor, oil is my favorite medium.
I find inspiration in my daily life, with my children, friends and family. Sometimes a situation, something I see, will evoke a memory of an idea. I paint to try to capture this idea into the image I saw.
My art is for anyone who seeks rest from this crazy, fast and demanding society. Who wants to see that dream, beauty and dedication to a single task, regardless of any external reward, is the reward itself.