Saudade is the Portuguese word for missing someone or something you love. Every Brazilian abroad knows it by heart.
Far from home, I painted Brazil in all its bold colors and vibrant energy: its animals, its waters, its cities.
Charleston · September 2019
The featured show.
Saudade was the featured show of September 2019 at the Lowcountry Artists Gallery, on East Bay Street, in Charleston. I had been living in the Lowcountry for a little over two years.
The opening reception happened a week late, after Hurricane Dorian.
The collection
Brazil in bold color.
Besouro de Fogo · Atlantic Forest
Planting the forest back.
As I was launching Saudade, fires were burning through the Amazon, and I wanted to help. My friend Alessandra Jeszensky had just bought land on top of a mountain in the Atlantic Forest and was looking for sponsors to reforest it. I became their biggest sponsor.
Years later, I finally visited. Of the 1,200 trees planted, 1,113 were still growing. The neighbors started protecting their own land, and a river that used to dry out part of the year keeps flowing.