Artist Statement

 For me, artistic activity brings in itself reconstruction as the main idea. 

There's much of reconstruction on each painting of my own. 

I was born in Rio de Janeiro of immigrants parents from different states of Brazil. 

Mother with ancestors on Puri Indian Nation...father with Dutch
descendants... working class in Rio suburbia. 

As I see the needs of reconstruction come from within my DNA. 

Painting is the medium that attracts me deeply. Oil or acrylic on canvas. I also like to paint big ones... while performing on them I feel myself like dancing... with the finished painting being as a graphic register of that
choreography. 

The reconstruction on the painting process comes after a primary composition with traces and tonal contrasts covering the whole canvas... brush work. This first moment I see like a sketch. 

The second movement consists of applying the white color and shades of
grey in selected parts of the composition and renewing it by covering completely some parts created in that first moment. This redefines the whole painting with new suggestions and all I got to do from then on is to keep working until I can declare it as done. 

I want to please the viewers with a painting that attracts them smoothly for a peaceful but intense reflection... like listening to a refined melody
with a seductive rhythm of a Rio Bossa Nova. 

Orlando Rafael dos Santos  

2021, January