Oscar Cruz Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil 2012

This series started early in my BFA at the Federal University of Rio, around 2004, when I was about to graduate. The course was very hands-on, and the theory did not address the issues I was interested in, so I did my own readings. I was fascinated by Philosophy and Poetry, and was eager to share these ideas with my fellow art majors (and anyone really). How to do that without tapping someone on the shoulder and reading to them? I decided to make paintings that would share the work of these authors on a monumental scale. Using bright colors to lure people’s attention. My desire was to create murals from the very beginning, but making public art does not come easy, so I started making paintings, hoping that they would lead to public spaces. I wanted to take literary works that might be too obscure/controversial, or perhaps too dissonant to mainstream consumerist culture, to the most public settings possible. Another reason to use text is a desire to let the viewers’ imagination construct their own imagery. I provide ideas, and they can illustrate them and hopefully bring them to fruition within their own internal dialog. The first iteration of this series is titled A Coney Island of the Mind, a homage to one of my favorite books by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

The series spans over 20 years - having evolved into the current Speaking Truth to Power series, focusing on words from women, BIPOC, Latinx, and LGBTQIA thinkers who question structures of oppression and domination, ranging from colonialism, patriarchy, and supremacist ideologies to advanced capitalism. Each author takes us on a journey through realms of intimacy as well as macro social-political scenarios, both denouncing and presenting alternatives. Each of these paintings and murals is an effort to preserve the memory and ideas of referential writers. Featured writers include bell hooks, Diane Di Prima, Paulo Freire, Hannah Arendt, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Gore Vidal, Ailton Krenak, and many more.