Plein air sketch, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil. 10"x12", oil on panel.

My approach to art shares the same spirit of curiosity, experimentation, and discovery that I try to cultivate in all other spheres of my life. It is -- at the same time and inseparably -- intuitive, intellectual, and creative. My own background reflects this coming together of intuition, analysis, and creation: having first received a degree in Law while still in Brazil, I came to the US for graduate school in literature and obtained my PhD in Literature with an emphasis in Critical Theory and Continental Philosophy, while at the same time teaching myself to paint.  It was when I moved to Southern California to teach literature and philosophy at the college-level, and began studying painting privately with master Sunny Apinchapong-Yang,  that I had the opportunity to see how much the art of painting shared with the art of writing and of thinking: like them, painting is all about relationships. Like a novel or a system of thought, it is a dynamic constellation of  elements in constant and constitutive interaction with each other.  No color, or value, or shape (no word, or statement, or thought) exists or makes sense in isolation. There's no part without a whole, and no whole without the parts that constitute it. That means that painting is a delicate balancing act that mirrors the same dynamics of the world we live in. Like literature and philosophy, art is a way to both apprehend, articulate, and express that world, and ourselves in it.

Teaching Experience:

  • 2023-present: Gage Academy, Seattle, WA.

  • 2022-present: Red Sky Gallery, Lake Forest Park, WA.

  • 2022-present: ArtWorks, Edmonds, WA.  

  • 2020-2022: Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA.  

  • 2017-2020: ID8 School of Art & Design, Los Angeles, CA.  

  • 2016-present: Private Drawing and Painting Instruction, CA.  

  • 2014-2021: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.

Education:

  • UC Berkeley, Ph.D. in Literature with a Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory;

  • UFPE, Brazil, Law Degree;

  • Mentorship with Steve Huston;

  • Mentorship with Sunny Apinchapong-Yang;

  • Figure Painting, Composition, and Drawing with Mian Situ;

  • Figure and Portrait Painting with Sean Cheetham, Jove Wang, Vadim Zanginian, and Steve Assael;

  • Figure Drawing with Glenn Vilppu, Karl Gnass, and Glen Orbik