Isabelle Nogueira (1963), born in Wenceslau Braz-PR, is an artist and art educator, with degrees in physiotherapy, design, visual arts and sociology. She developed an interest in the arts as a child, encouraged by her mother. She was a student of the great master of Paraná painting, Andrade Lima. Her artistic research focuses on social issues with a focus on childhood, exalting diversity, inclusion and sustainability in art. Her experiences in the health area and art have always been interconnected, becoming the basis for developing her research and artistic production, favoring a relationship that makes racial and social diversity visible and triggers reflections. Isabelle is a trainer of drawing and painting techniques in her studio and has been working mainly with drawing and painting on different supports. Her works have been part of collective and individual exhibitions in Curitiba.
How did your journey into the art world begin?
I have always had something in me that drew me closer to the arts since I was very young, but the encouragement of my mother, who was a teacher and jewelry designer, was fundamental. She was my motivator and also very critical of my production and with that I was increasingly improving my techniques. Between the ages of 13 and 18, I had great teachers as teachers, such as Andrade Lima and Poty Lazzarotto. After that, I studied physiotherapy, a profession that I practiced for 25 years. Even working in the health area, I kept art connected to my life, having a small studio next to my office where I dedicated myself to art in the gaps in my professional schedule until it took over my life without resistance. From physiotherapy, my experiences impregnated in art remained, like roots eager for inclusion, my unique view of human diversity, my indignation at social issues, an arduous and continuous search for deep respect for differences.
What themes do you prefer to explore in your works?
As a visual artist, I carry within me a burning desire for social change, something that I bring from my experiences as a health professional: to foster respect and a culture of peace. I have held death and life in my hands, I have witnessed despair and joy, and I have supported suffering and achievements for many years. I portray the racial and social diversity of childhood: children with Down syndrome, black children, bicolor children, amputees, wheelchair users, indigenous children, among others, making differences visible in all aspects through the image of childhood in art, with the intention of awakening and attracting the viewer through their innocence wrapped in the hope of a better, more egalitarian future, using the image as a trigger to raise relevant questions for the lives of everyone on this planet so in need of awareness. By carrying in its image a tangle of conceptual threads that guide the individual, I give voice to children in search of inclusion and a culture of peace, of respect for differences in search of decolonizing thought and perspective, raising awareness of inclusion, respect as a driving force for peace, equity, sustainability.
What is your creative process like?
My creative process always begins with a narrative that comes from my perspective, from texts and poems that I write, from moments I once experienced as a health professional, from events that make me indignant and restless, from my nomadism in the streets that serve as a laboratory that triggers the construction of a central concept, and even from the speeches of the children around me that become a starting point. From this, imagery references emerge, as well as a lot of research and many sketches produced.
In this way, my artistic work flows lightly and playfully, full of mixed materials and techniques.
I focus on “playing” with colors and textures in drawing and painting, using the overlapping of techniques and materials, often interspersed, all in a single work. Other times, I use recyclable materials to produce a collage with my own drawing.
What materials and techniques do you use most often?
I create with everything that appears in front of me: on different types of supports such as canvas, wood, paper, cardboard, card, plastic, product labels, plastic bags and packaging and recyclables, fabric, etc. I also use natural pigments, oil, acrylics, tempera and watercolors, colored pencils, demographic pencils, markers and ballpoint pens and everything can be used to convey the narrative that I am constructing. Generally, on these, I use different drawing and painting techniques, all mixed, freely and without order and even drawing and painting materials that are not compatible with each other, interspersed with varnish to produce bonds and texture.
I like to leave my mark by showing my brushstrokes, my well-defined lines on the work. It is as if I leave pieces of myself in the work through these details, in addition to the possible inclusion of words and texts that in some works I used with the intention of making the viewer spend more time in front of it, forcing their visual reading.
In a series of works made on linen in which 60 children were portrayed with special watercolor, created in 2017, I used a watercolor paint created especially for this project by a chemist. The water-based paint was scented with the smell of baby clothes to stimulate affective and olfactory memory during the exhibition of the works. The linen, in this case, was painted with the fabric wet, providing delicacy like the baby's skin.
What is the role of the artist in today's society?
Today, the role of the artist is amplified; he is a kaleidoscope that spins and reflects the light that guides society, breaking conventions, transgressing patterns that close the social world into boxes. He has been balancing criticism and creation, shouting and denouncing, dreaming and provoking reality like a true juggler. His role is to be a herald of pain and joy, of suffering and social indignation in the face of injustice. He is a driver of visibility, opening up possibilities for the perception of the world in search of social and political change, in favor of giving voice to the marginalized, of pressing for justice, shouting, venting visually, in a struggle to overcome geographical and cultural barriers, with the intention of exposing in the flesh the emotions and challenges of his time, also being able to offer escapism and beauty, understanding our individualities to produce social transformation.
