another great feature + encountering Vali Myers

2009 has been a very prolific year and it will also be remembered by the wonderful, special people who have been crossing my path. one of these persons is Julia Inglis, Australian Tarot reader and teacher who recently featured my work in her beautiful newsletter. that made me feel so happy! just click in the images to check it out.

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Julia also introduced me to this fantastic artist: Vali Myers. Vali was an Australia born dancer, who decided to move to Paris in the post-war period. without a job, she became a street artist, until moving to Italy and then  to New York, to get concentrated in selling her artwork. she finally came back to Australia where she set up her studio and started to regularly show her work, until passing away at age 72, after battling with cancer. I got so mesmerized by Vali's image and by her story, which resonated so deeply inside me... maybe her hunger for living life her own way, or her past as a bohemian artist, struggling to survive on her art (that somehow feels so close...) or even her amazingly beautiful and magical looks... i decided that I'm going to paint a tribute to Vali Myers.

"I've had 72 absolutely flaming years. It (the illness) doesn't bother me at all, because, you know love, when you've lived like I have, you've done it all. I put all my effort into living; any dope can drop dead. I'm in the hospital now, and I guess I'll kick the bucket here. Every beetle does it, every bird, everybody. You come into the world and then you go."

Tarantata

 

Golden Flower

Dido

a delicate brainstorm.

violence against women is a theme I've been for a long time planning to explore in a piece. along with children's and animal's rights, that's a subject I am totally sensitive to. I think that every woman already felt in her own skin some kind of abuse or discrimination. they come not only in the form of physical violence or sexual humiliation, but in the form of words and abusive behaviors that are pretty much considered normal. like husbands who decline doing housework claiming that it is "women's work", for example. or rejected boyfriends that become a real torment in their ex-girls lives, thanks to their hurt "male pride", or for believing they have certain "rights" over her life.

I was born and raised in a very machist country, and although women in Brazil have theoretically the same rights as men, machist practices are so ingrained in our culture that are perpetuated even by the very women almost instinctively. almost daily I've been reading this blog, in Portuguese, by a Brazilian journalist who talks very often about violence against women. her posts have helped me enormously to develop my concept for the piece. I've been also researching works from another artists on the subject in order to observe how it's been represented. in my search I found Abro, this inspired, highly sensitive Pakistani artist, who says more with his powerful paintings than many of the women can barely suspect about themselves:



the paintings are clearly about Pakistani women, but I think that they can perfectly tell stories about women worldwide. in Pakistan, Brazil, America, or India. we are all both protagonists and silent spectators of a drama that unites all of us under a dense sheet of shame and tears.