Art seems to be similar to life in which concerns to a lack of definition. It does not mean that we cannot ask ourselves what we do and why we do, when we make something that people call artistic work. Sometimes one needs to explain to others the time spent doing things which apparently do not have any direct usefulness.
Art in general does not seem to be a form of knowledge. Probably art is communication without being language, revealing aspects of consciousness which language cannot reach. There are mental states like ‘twilight’ zones, between consciousness and unconsciousness.
These are not ‘places’ only for artists, scientists frequently live inside these shadows. But there is a difference. Although very important and necessary for human kind, science is a very cold expression of nature. It is everything which can be known, thought and described, but not experienced as a feeling. Actually, in pure science there are no values for judgment, neither is there place for ugly or beautiful, as some scientists like to say. Beauty and ugliness are features of art that, in this sense, is opposite to science. Art may be a form of the affects outside us. Forms like these are not always geometrical shapes, like in the case of visual art, but they can be sounds of music, poems, etc. Affects may be behind forms and this is why, in case of vision, the sight of an object means much more than what the eyes can see. So communication without words may explain why some people like to paint and others like paintings.
I was born in 1952, and started painting when I was twelve years old. Mostly I like to paint landscapes. I never studied in an art academy or similar school, only followed a short drawing course. I grew up and studied in Rio de Janeiro. When I was 20 years old I started to move and travel frequently, due to my scientific studies and private life. Later, I followed a course of porcelain painting.
Back in Rio de Janeiro, I studied analytical psychology and (I do not know if due to this fact) also started to paint ‘human situations’ like representations of persons inside the word, mixing figurative with abstractions. These were the last works, from 1984. Then, for one or another reason, I stopped painting for 20 years. And now, in 2004, I started again. So I am happy that I still can paint here in Netherlands. And, even not fully knowing what I do, I have the hope that this is something good.
