ARTIST STATEMENT:
There were long bus trips with my aunt, the metallic noise and smell. The cluttered art studios, the shady modernistic concrete homes, and museums with long hallways and high ceilings. Day trips to the coast, so many trees lining the winding roads, and suddenly, the ocean. A warm white was the prevalent color. At the homes of my father’s friends' the odor of turpentine, brushes, canvases, and books everywhere - so many images. Army soldiers with green helmets and olive grad circling our green Volkswagen Bug. That one was scary, but the adults didn’t talk much about it. São Paulo, Brazil in the early 1970s’.

My father was an elderly man when I was born. He was a well-known painter and a respected art critic. My mom belonged to an entire generation younger than his and came from a different background. She was strikingly beautiful and had that salt-of-the-earth nobility. When I was seven he became partially disabled by a stroke, and life took a weird turn. My mother, a naturally strong individual, became even more present and assumed superhero qualities. We traveled a great deal, in visits to his many friends and sometimes he would paint. I painted too, right by his side. This brief apprentice was my way into his world, and surprisingly, I remember almost every lesson from him.

I also remember the feeling of an intense restlessness, impatience, and lots of energy. Today we have different names for this condition.

The compositions I tried to create in my paintings are populated by a strong symbolism and my anxious imagination. They never existed outside these memories, but I once inhabited each one of them.

Whenever I find myself starting a new work, this is where I keep going back to. Not motivated by nostalgia, or some conscious intellectual desire, it’s just where I find connections I can express in paint.

It's about how we occupy the land, places we live in, and the constant transformation, either by men or nature itself. Questioning our perceived memories and established narratives.

The historical perspective, to me, is unavoidable, because it is often ignored by many. If we can’t look back, we’ll repeat our mistakes. It is my way of dealing with and relating to, my time in the only home each of us will ever have.

LOCATION: Oakland, CA