People and human nature fascinate me: our desires, our needs, our fragilities and especially our inner beauty which, in my opinion, comes from our constant vulnerability, despite our tremendous efforts to hide it.

It is precisely these vulnerabilities that I always try to capture in my work, regardless of the medium I use: drawing, painting, sculpture, collage. There is no specific aim I would like to achieve with it, but if I had to choose something to aim for, it would probably be to celebrate the magic and quirkiness of being human; to draw attention to those unevenftul moments in between when nothing "special" happens but when, in fact, everything that is deep and important takes place; to treasure simple and internal victories, invisible to the eye but crucial to our personal development.

 

In our society we are constantly pushed to appear rather than to be and that is definitely something I want to fight in my work. Beauty, realism and perfection don’t appeal to me. I won’t draw or paint something exactly how it looks but rather try and capture its essence. With almost all my works, feel the pictures being painted directly through me, without any preliminary study but with great force. I usually have no idea about the outcome, but I work swiftly and surely, without changing a single stroke.

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Ana Melo