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Exploring the mind and habits of an artist in twenty-five questions.
My path was different, so it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact age I decided to become an artist. Growing up in a poor neighborhood in Brazil, I lacked artistic ambition and thought I needed a job. When I was thirteen, I worked in a grocery store, and the owner liked my doodles. He asked me to draw vegetables and write their prices. That’s when I naively thought I had a skill to make money, and I focused on that. For twelve years, I was an advertising illustrator. Then, when I was thirty, I quit everything, moved to America, and started focusing on my artistic development. I guess that’s the age I decided to become an artist.
They had a humble background and never understood what I did. For my parents, it was OK if I could support myself, and I’ve been doing that ever since.
Sargent is my favorite painter. Dürer, Goya, Caspar David Friedrich, and Van Gogh are my favorite artists.
Right now, Philip Guston by Robert Storr. Every time I buy a new book, I cannot live without it until the next purchase.
Sacrifice—career, family, comfort, style, etc.
Yes, always, my wallet is a sketchbook.
The Met. Besides the fantastic collection of Western art, the always empty Asian wing is a treat. I have been lucky to see Sargent’s watercolors at the American Wing when I teach. Sargent made his most radical and experimental works in watercolor.
Cézanne Drawing at MoMA. The exhibition opened with a quote: “Best known as a painter, Paul Cézanne produced some of his most radically original works on paper.” Indeed, Cézanne’s fragmentations were made possible by immediate media, pencil and watercolor.
A cook.
Painting watercolor was an early passion in my development and helped me escape from advertising. But, there’s no watercolor movement, only watercolor artists.
I wish I had learned how important it is to set rules for yourself. To the false idea that you can do everything, I say, No, you can’t. Giorgio Morandi didn’t paint lush roses.
A small watercolor landscape from 1495 by Dürer, the first watercolorist, called Landscape near Segonzano in the Cembra Valley. During his trips to Italy, Dürer painted topographical plein-air works, and this particular painting depicts an abstract and expressive unfinished foreground against a small, representational, and tight finished background. I might say that it is the first work of art with figurative and abstract tension. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen this work in person. Hopefully, I will see it one day.
A lovely well-presented meal.
I always have noise in the studio, primarily instrumental music, when I concentrate. Music with lyrics or the news is good when doing something repetitive.
Mendes Wood in Tribeca where I saw the endearing flattened landscape paintings by Patricia Leite.
The Canadian painter Franklin Carmichael. He is part of the Group of Seven, artists inspired by the Canadian landscape. Carmichael is responsible for the revival of watercolor, employed not for topographical rendering but rather as an interpretation of spatial form and mood. Even Peter Doig references him in his work.
Pencil and paper.
I’m in the studio daily—which is most important for me—but not always painting. I also teach via Zoom. Sometimes I just read a book, etc, etc. I’m fine as long I’m in the studio.
Maybe six months in 2013.
I mop the studio floor.
Death and life are the main questions these days. Last year I lost my father, and my daughter was born two days after.
To pay attention.
I haven’t yet finished an artwork that satisfies me completely. Everything else that I want to achieve will come when the work is solid.
Even though it’s tricky to navigate between lousy art and advertising, you can discover new artists, and I’m happy some are making a living from these new platforms.
Selection of stories, guides, and more from the League.
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