Sonia Eyer de Mello Guaraldi, Brazilian, born in Nova Friburgo RJ. Visual artist with a degree in Literature, postgraduate studies in Art, Education and Contemporary Technologies (UNB). She attended extension courses in Art History at UFRJ-RJ and at the National Museum of Fine Arts. Visual School of Parque Laje-RJ. She was a professor of Art Education, literature.
The artist's production began in the 2000s with research on antagonisms, polarities of everyday life. In this context, questions related to displacement, migrations and freedoms arose.
Birds permeate her current research and migrate from the geometric to the organic, gaining life, light and movement.
The artist's memories are part of her theme, as well as that of a teacher in underprivileged communities, observing smiling children taking flight on top of slabs even in situations of erasure and weight.
How did your journey into the art world begin?
I have always been passionate about the illustrations in the books I read since I was a child. From literature, fiction and the imagination that emerged from reading. From films, the sets, the costumes. From life, the observations. From there, I started to discover how to draw, paint and express myself through images. I experimented with various techniques and went in search of the artistic language that best expressed my work. I found teachers and artists who guided me on this path and I sought out deeper knowledge and studies, and I continue to do so today.
How would you describe your artistic style?
I am a contemporary and a lover of art history, from the classics to the present day. I open up research fronts according to my questions and life challenges. I do not have a linear language. I am eclectic and my work presents itself in very varied languages. Performances, sculpture, objects, installations, photography. It all depends on the research, the moment and the reflections that the theme raises.
What themes do you prefer to explore in your works?
I like to approach topics that catch my attention, provoke me and move me. I like to explore the differences, the contrasts of everyday life. I am currently involved with flying, which can provide us with the experience of freedom, lightness, change... amidst the burdens that life presents us.
And so, I try to create new realities, go beyond, enter another time, one that has not yet been perceived.
What is your creative process like?
I explore the research in progress as much as possible. I try to see how my idea is being discussed in various artistic languages. How literature presents it, how some philosophers have discussed it over time, how music and cinema approach it or have approached it. I try to insert myself into the questions that arise during the research and look for materials to work with that have strong meanings and help to visually convey my form - thought.
What are your sources of inspiration?
The first impact was Lewis Carroll’s book, Alice in Wonderland, which brought the message of Alice’s journey that reminds us of the importance of remaining true to ourselves and following our own dreams and aspirations, even when the world around us seems strange and confusing.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Millan Kundera... “we are always looking for the weight of responsibilities, when what we really want is the lightness of freedom.”
The poet Rubens Alves... “The void is the space of freedom, the absence of uncertainty...”
Films- “Pixote” and the films in the “Mad Max” series. Sets and costumes.
Visual artists- Chiaro Shiota, Adriana EU, Louise Bourgeois, and many others.
Words and things.- Michel Foucault- “make us believe that something new is about to begin, always.”
Writer Guimarães Rosa “The world is magical. People don’t die, they become enchanted.”
What materials and techniques do you use most often?
Based on research, I try to use materials that best express my way of thinking and how I can make it visible. The elaboration of a work on lightness, for example, requires a meticulous assembly process, since some materials such as threads, lines, kite structures, embroidery, tissue paper, bamboo, canvas, among others, speak for themselves about the fragility of the assembly that occurs through seams, weaves and fraying until its maximum power.
What is the role of the artist in today's society?
Show that art is life and should be accessible to everyone.
