Handcrafted Bronze Bookend, "Hercules"

"I believe that the gift of sculpting is a talent that showed itself as a game during my childhood — it was totally subconscious. Only after I was married and expecting my first son, about 1988, I began to hear an internal call toward art. I felt something lacking and my hands gave constant signs of restlessness. Advised by a friend, I took a few sculpture classes and this led me on a long, inner journey.

"Forms appeared in clay without any forethought, and the subconscious was my main source. With the aid of teachers and with a personal commitment to perfecting my artistic expression, my work began to develop and gain ground. My rational side impelled me to look for technical and theoretical information, while my emotional side provided content for the creation of new pieces. This was a great internal discovery that brought me enormous satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

"The first material that I tried was bronze, a dense and strong material that allowed me to create long, linear forms. Later, I started to cast in resin, a lighter material that permitted more robust forms and also offered transparency in the pieces. It was after discovering resin that I launched a line of utilitarian objects that maintain the sculpture concept. There I could experiment with a more abstract line without entirely losing the figurative reference.

"Among the themes in my work, woman is one of the most appealing. The feminine body allows countless aesthetic possibilities even when the artist deforms it, as with my elongated figures that maintain their grace and harmony.

"I believe that by exhibiting my work to you, an immeasurable number of people can come to know it and I can expand my borders beyond Brazil."