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Candida Ferreira

Candida Ferreira is featured in Keepers of the Arts, a beautiful hardcover book available through Novica.

"My relationship with painting started when I was just a small child. Seeing my interest, my parents regularly bought me canvases, paints and pencils.

"Painting became even more important to me after I got married. My husband Claudio and I moved to Minas Gerais, in the mountainous southeast of Brazil. To kill the solitude, I painted while my husband worked. I painted with a very academic style then; today, I paint with freer, unorthodox strokes.

"Learning to paint was a very solitary process for me. I believe that it is necessary to work, to work and to work, and that it is only through learning from errors that we learn to do right.

"I try to represent Brazil in my work by using quite a lot of color. I find inspiration in the images that surround me in my daily life, like magazines and history books. I sit down in front of the canvas and I start to draw, to mix my paints, and little by little a new work appears. It's the best thing in life, an inexplicable sensation. I like to work during the most silent hours. Before dawn I am already painting. Eventually I realize that the sun has risen and the day has begun.

"I am thankful to have had the opportunity to attend some of the most renowned fine-arts schools in the country. I was also fortunate to receive training from the famous artist Fernando Tupper. My paintings have been awarded various gold, silver and bronze medals at various expositions."