I am a French-Brazilian visual artist, writer and educator born on the northeastern coast of Brazil. I work across photography, video, drawing and poetry to explore my relationship as a human being with the natural world, questioning the perenity of the bond between humans and nature in our contemporary society. With a background in literature, psychology and philosophy, my work is heavily based on research and writing.
Having learned photography largely on my own, as a young woman of color in an extremely patriarchal and discriminating medium, I found in an outdoor practice, a space where I could be myself and I could belong. Being alone outdoors, waiting, walking and gathering are essential to making my work. I often think of geography and maps, wandering across the paper with my dots much as I wander when I get lost. Is making a map the practice of getting lost, or of trying no longer to get lost? Noticing is always the first step to making my work, a way of looking within and without at the same time.
I find freedom in experimentation, in repelling the idea that to make good work I need to have the “right” gear or tools, or have access to the best infrastuctures. Indeed, I was taught early on in my ceramics practice that I don't need to buy clay or glazes, or have all the advanced tools to make work that is beautiful or that matters. Clay materials can be mixed by foot and ceramic pieces can be fired with wood in a hole in the ground. I apply that same frame of mind to my practice in photography and video. I believe in practices that take time, yet that remove the technicalities standing in the way of creativity.
Recently, my work has become more embodied, temporary and immediate, often made mostly outdoors, like cyanotypes next to streams and the ocean or freewriting as a tool to capture what is present. I favor unpredictable processes such as broken cameras, expired film, grain and distortion, allowing chance to guide the work toward what feels essential. I mix materials that don't go well together, food oils and gouache, encaustic medium and ink. Fragile surfaces like tracing paper, vellum and mylar sit at the center of my practice; like skin, they wrinkle, stain, crack and tear over time, refusing to stay pristine. My work resists the culture of instant gratification, inviting viewers instead into slower, sustained contemplation.
I hold a Bachelor's Degree in Literature and Arts and a Master's Degree in Literature, Arts and Contemporary Thought from the University of Paris Cité in France, and I completed my MFA in Visual Arts at California State University, Northridge in 2024. I have exhibited at New Wight Gallery (UCLA), Peggy Phelps Gallery (University of Claremont), Bienal de Arte Universitario (UAEMEX), Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City) and Creativity Crisis Center (L.A.). I was awarded the Virginia Orndoff Prize in 2023 and received the Matadors Council Grant in 2024 for my project "diaphanous." I currently live and work in Los Angeles, California.