Daniela Corrêa Fortes

Oil on canvas. 30 x 40cm

Oil on linen. 30 x 40cm

Oil on canvas. 30 x 40cm

Oil on canvas. 30 x 40cm


Lead. 18 x 9 x 12cm

Lead. 18 x 15.5 x 6.5cm

Brazilian. Born 1976 in Rio, ‘wonder city, purgatory of beauty and chaos’. Mother of a brilliant girl. I investigate ‘the stranger within myself’, paint, sculpture, silence, nature, people, consciousness and breakfast tea. Impassioned for Contemporary Art since the 90's. Faced horror vacui of white canvas with Luiz Ernesto, at Parque Lage School of Visual Arts; graduated in Publicity and did Art Philosophy PostGraduation, PUC-RJ; performed with Coletivo Improviso, directed by Enrique Diaz and in the film ‘The Absence that Moves Us’, by Christiane Jatahy; got prizes for plays, participated in and coordinated exhibitions and owned a production company.
Website: www.danielacorreafortes.com
Instagram: @danielacorreafortes
Email: danielafor@gmail.com

Artist Statement
The ‘In Illusion’ series explores an idiosyncratic symbolism throughout the world, depicting limits in between reality and hallucination and proposing, through small oil paintings and small sculptures, a poetic way to look at ordinary things.
The craft side of artwork is considered. Heavy sculptures are balanced with light paintings. In the paintings, I follow rules in search of empathy. I use only six colours; they are the same size; they are made through a technique of a dissolved background with an image over it, based on objects, domestic life, gestures, scenes from nature and from political or social facts. They expose unveiled flourishing involuntary memories. A sofa, for example, can remind me of a relationship that didn't end well; or the discovered hiding place of a man who was transferring money illegally to Brazil’s president's bank account can flash the sensation of my childhood's beach house, adding nostalgia to the brush mark.
The sculptures are amusing with an amount of weirdness in a classical form. They are nightmares turned into figures. The final lead material has its origin in a wax model of the abstract idea that came across during the night: the ‘good citizen’ (how electors of extreme right politicians denote themselves), for example, or a man with two ‘penises’, or the legs of a woman becoming the ears of a rabbit. Lead is related to toy soldiers and guns. I like the idea of transforming toxic and violent material into resistant art.
Irony is revealed by the subjective and self-reflected act of seeing. A piano, a clothes line, an airplane can be a cow, a monster or daddy. I investigate the appearing of things in contrast to what remains hidden. I believe in an ethical hedonistic relation with existence and I invite people to have joy.