Artist Statement
Artist Statement
Series: Dreams and shadows
I am inspired by daily questions and answers, human expressions and beauty; the unreliable world we live in; human life and humour, fantasies and dreams. I paint/ draw imaginary figures; some suggested, some realistic; I enjoy abstraction and placing these figures in evocative surreal atmospheres, which allows for primeval myths to surface; their humour and questions. I manipulate the subject or the placement of the subject in most of my paintings, in order to bring out the elements mentioned above: myth, humour and questioning.
I like to draw the eye into the depths of the painting; into strange, dreamy, mythological spaces; to afford the viewers moments of fantasy, and pleasure; to provoke emotions and feelings! Sometimes nostalgia surface.
In most of the work I use mixed medium, and I believer each medium has its own benefit when it comes to create certain effects – and thus, allow me to bring/add some “magic” to my paintings.
In this particular series entitled, Dreams and Shadows I talk about my personal life, how dramatic sometimes it turned – moments of evasive fear, nostalgia, uncertainty, yet with a deemed light surfacing from the depth of the tunnel – circumstances that helped me build courage and confidence and, somehow, shaping my character to face it all with love. And the Love can be found, in most of my work, in the form of a woman evading and taking place as subject – she comes in as a metaphor to emphasize the motherhood/endurance of my thriving.
Most of my works are achieved by applying layers of different colours and/ values, forms, lines, shapes, spaces, textures, which serve as metaphor to my life’s transitions – the subjects in most of the paintings will be seen as in transit (sometimes from the invisible to visible or vice versa) – thus to suggest that life’s circumstances and adversities will come and go or we, eventually, will have to break through them, and they are as if one is pilling layers of the old/past in order to give way to the new. Some of this comes to light as the painting suggests that the subject/s in them is/are coming out a storm, chaos, uncertainty, fear or madness to a place of peace, light and love/harmony. And sometimes the movement portrayed by the subject will suggest a break free moment.
In the work I also try to voice up the struggle that is constantly raising these days in trying to “fit in”, and the question of whether it’s necessary or not. With the today’s light of the media, with the emphasis to social media, how can one escape the trend and build his/her own voice? This and other questions flow throughout my work and bring forth an understanding that we are all unique in a way as the works are, and the individual interpretation of the work by the viewers add to a stimulation of how beautiful the world could be if we all exercise that freedom/gift.
The predominant colour in my paintings is blue, for its elasticity when it comes to depth. The colour blue, somehow, says a lot about my personality as well as it gives me needed tranquility to peacefully penetrate in the depth of what I am creating and enjoy different feelings and emotions it provokes.
Art Series
Dreams and Shadows
In this particular series entitled, Dreams and Shadows I talk about my personal life, how dramatic sometimes it turned –…
“Saudades”
“Saudade (A Portuguese and Galician word that has no direct translation into English) was once described as “the love that…
Under the Moonlight
Our nights were odd, as the electricity (one provided by a local public generator) went off after 8pm or 9pm,…