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Hi.
I am Vânia Mignone, and will talk a bit
about my career and about the works
I will be showing in the United States.
I started, not as a painter, but making woodcuts,
carving wood,
from which I borrowed the strong colors and very dark black used in my paintings.
Later, I expanded the size of the woodcuts, from small to bigger,
and started to work directly on the wood aiming at a large format.
I always liked to work with painting,
I always liked the human form,
and I always liked to associate images and words.
This ended up becoming one of the trademarks of my work.
The association between words and images,
—which are not subtitles, but have an influence from comics and from film—
but the words appear more like objects.
Instead of drawing a house, I can write the word "house."
Instead of using a color, I can write "red,"
using words in this way.
Although I am working with painting techniques,
using paint and brushes,
I think the work has more of a connection with drawing.
About the works that will be exhibited in the United States,
I have a large piece which follows this line of my work.
When I start a work, I don't know where it will lead, I don't make sketches.
I make everything from memory.
Then I start with these plates,
and as the idea becomes stronger,
I start expanding the work.
This work is a work of six parts,
it is large and yellow,
with this female figure in the center, and has the word "birth."
Which I thought at the time related beautifully with this woman, since she was dispersed in
a yellow liquid, something like that, and the idea of a birth.
The other work is a work that I called Domino.
It reminds me of the Domino game as you start placing together the pieces,
like images that start repeating,
joining together and forming this sequence,
which also includes the empty spaces.
It is a work that began with one plate, a small plate,
and slowly the idea started growing, mounting and spreading,
and became this result, very colorful and very spontaneous,
since I associate it with the children's game.
In relation to the political and geographical environment of Brazil resulting from this work,
I think there is something really interesting happening.
These are pieces that are made with very simple materials,
such as biodegradable wood or PDF, very simple acrylic paint, brushes,
nothing expensive or high tech, nothing sophisticated.
The work is very simple.
That is the way I can work in Brazil.
If I wanted to do an expensive work, for example,
I would not be able to experiment much with it.
The materials are very simple,
so I can use them without difficulty, I can throw them out if I want without fear,
which allows me to have a lot more contact with the materials, to know them,
which allows me to have a lot more contact with the materials, to know them,
and to produce the work.
I say a lot to my students in Brazil about this.
It is what you can buy without much sacrifice,
and you can use and discard it many times,
since you will have to do that until you get to the final result.
I think this has to do with the possibilities in Brazil,
of finding and using these materials easily,
since I live in the countryside of São Paulo,
and this is the access I have.
But this is also what is nice in art, when the work is good,
it doesn't matter how you made it.
You could have used a piece of paper, cheap and simple,
but the idea is that the work should arrive
at the same results of those works that are highly sophisticated.
This is what I like in art:
to get to the best results from working with cheap and simple materials.