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Anabela Silva

Artist

Anabela Silva tells us stories through her canvases. She is self-taught. She has the ability to absorb the simple and most important things in life. The things that make her the person she is. She was born in Guimarães - where Portugal was born -, studied design, but it is in painting that she looks at the world with another magnitude. The mystery of things, strong colours, women and travels provide her with inspiration. From coloured pencil drawings she moved on to large-scale canvases. Today, what a painting is able convey grabs her eye. She paints when the soul allows her such a blessing and not because she feels forced to. Her mysterious and discreet manner makes her a sensitive and charming woman. You could say that she is a face of the arts with much to reveal to the world.

Anabela Silva
How did painting come into your life?
It was something that was always part of me! Ever since the age of coloured pencils, I have always been fascinated and attracted to see how, with a simple gesture of a stroke you could create something so mysterious.

Do you remember the first painting you created? What did it express?
It was some time in the eighties that I first ventured moving from drawing on paper to canvas; at the time it was somewhat abstract, with strong colours, but that caught my eye with the revelation of misshapen forms and was, at the same time, violently sweet and mysterious.

Where does inspiration come from when you are creating?
Essentially from women and from my trips to Paris and other parts of the world. And everyday life is always a source of inspiration for me. We are fascinating and very complex beings, with much to tell the world and with many question marks, which impregnate our heads...
«To paint, I have to feel inspired and not because I feel obliged to»
Has any work affected you more? 
All my works, in some way, have marked me, because they are part of me, of my growth as a woman and of experiences that have made me the person I am today. But one of the ones that have affected me the most was the one I called A Serpente – because of the force it transmitted to me and how it grabbed my eye.

If your works were able to speak what they would say about you?
... I woke up wanting to know the hidden side of women... Enabling in me a piece of supreme wisdom and eliminating all the question marks that sometimes flourish within my head.

Has any painter influenced your artistic life?
Yes! Frida Kahlo, for her strength, both in her works and in her life, has always impressed me.

You only dedicate yourself to painting when you feel the time is right. Why is that? Do you not create works incessantly to avoid the commonplace, or overkill?
To paint, I have to feel inspired and not because I feel obliged to, not least because in my case that leads to nothing. I believe that in order to pass something on to other people, if it is not done with soul, it is not worth doing.

In addition to the visual arts, the world of fashion design impressed you, when you were very young. Tell us how this came into your life and how it is to also be working in this art of design?
Design and fashion have also been part of my life, from very early on. I studied fashion design and design, in Guimarães and at the Academia de Moda Artes Técnicas do Porto, and the taste for creating has always been present, has always fascinated me and this turned out to be a way of life. And having the privilege of working with major brands that help us grow as designers was very important.
Maria Cruz
T. Maria Cruz
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