Page 6 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 22

Are you trying to penetrate all these aspects of ryone undersands or wondrers how I can put
your iden�ty with the Chris�an faith? How do
you manage that? What are your experiences
with it?
I have always loved the Bible. I grew up in the
US, where Protestants were keen on learning to
read in order to read the Scriptures. I memori-
zed verses in Sunda School, and then I returned
to Brazil, where I was born, and where un�l Va-
�can II, the Bible was forbidden reading to Ca-
tholics. So I am using this art form to express
Bible verses, something I never did before. I
love the Psalms and the stories of Jesus, as well
as the stories from the Old testament.
Would you like to add something about your
Chris�an iden�ty?
I am a sixth-genera�on Protestant in the largest
Catholic country in the world. Several genera�-
ons of my family were considered ‘here�cs’ and
my grandfather was even disinherited by his
Italian Catholic mother for having married a
Protestant. I understood early in life that being
a Chris�an had a price tag.
On the flip side, I am part of a genera�on of
Crypto-Jews who had had to hide their iden�ty
for 500 years in church. My maternal grandmo-
ther s�ll killed chickens the kosher way. So Je-
wish love of Torah is in my very blood. Not eve-
Solo exhibi�on “Reflec�on” at “The Balcony Gallery of “Jerusalem Theater” (2011)
this together… but it comes down to the love
of Scripture.
About your pain�ngs: How you developed
this? What meaning does this have for you?
I started pain�ng as a child. Although I had a
few lessons, I was in the youngster class where
they didn’t teach us techniques and it got bo-
ring, so I quit. From there I pre�y much am
self-taught. I love gouache, and now I have dis-
covered watercolor pencils. When I as in the
University, pain�ng helped me stay lucid. It has
always given me pleasure, but it was also my
therapy that kept me sane. It didn’t ma�er that
pain�ng “didn’t make sense”. My soul under-
stood and that was enough. I spent 20 years
without picking up a paintbrush, and a friend
did a session with me that totally unblocked
my crea�vity. From then I have kept pain�ng,
but the style changes from �me to �me. I love
bright colors and abstracts. I was never really
able to draw much at all, just paint. And like
pain�ng, my life has been “outsaid the lines” of
commonality. I’ve done things differently than
was expected of me at �mes, and like the ener-
gy of the bright colors, I ploughed through the
challenges. Amazingly, beau�ful structures
came out of it. Pain�ng is healing. It heals the
soul that can’t talk.