Alice Sousa defines herself as a Jewish wandering in the world. Her career reflects all the places where she went, people she knew the writers and the words that filled the days of longing for her homeland and loves lost in the waves of memory. A work that is an ongoing journey due to her personal disquietude.
The waters of time have a strong poetic message and swallows. There is an underlying idea of wandering?
Alice Sousa: It's possible. I am a very restless. It has an affinity with Guida Vieira in that matter. We worked together in the studio at Lido until 2000, and our empathy was mainly because there was restlessness within us. We always try to allay that feeling with one another. I was really a Jewish wandering in the world. I was in Belgium, just passing through in Venezuela and lived in Brazil, in Rio Grande do Sul. It was a great distance from Rio de Janeiro, were 36 hours by bus. In this current phase of my life, I'm in a downward cycle and do not want to sound pessimistic, I write to friends who have gone before, the poets who I loved and love, the trips I've ever done for this world and I can do no more for personal reasons. I enjoyed it all and maybe that is reflected in my paintings.
This exhibition is accompanied by music of Chico Buarque, why?
AS: Well, Chico Buarque was architecture student and colleague of my brother, had a choir in college and they set up a play called "freedom, freedom", in which enter the late Paulo Autran and Lygia Fagundes Telles, who also was very good actress. It was an extraordinary spectacle, interrupted constantly to applaud the actors and the music was by Chico Buarque. The turntable also links me to Guida because I bombarded her with his music. It was a "massacre". She had to listen so much and hear that it was her suggestion to put music at the exhibition.
Brazil is always present in your work? In your previous work this is reflected somewhat in line, in the bold colors.
AS: Yes, you know, I did painting the fourth year in Porto. I asked equivalence when I went to Brazil do the fifth and sixth year and then I graduated. So, in college they liked me so much, because I had chosen that country to study, to the detriment of my studies, they let me do what I ever I wanted.
Why then Brazil to study?
AS: From Belgium, I was briefly in Venezuela and there I went to the headquarters of the university and a teacher told me: here you will not learn anything. Go to a place that has a convention and also because my father loved Brazil, it was their way of being as a people. They are extraordinary, after winning their trust.
The trip comes through the birds that appear in the paintings?
AS: Yes, the birds have come from Porto. Master Gomes said that we were at the time of the wings. I think that has to do a bit of that time with the regime, which was quite oppressive. The trips also arise because it comes from an exhibition planned by the cooperative tree.
Porquê o Brasil então para estudar?
AS: Da Bélgica, estive brevemente na Venezuela e lá fui até à sede da universidade e um professor espanhol disse-me que: aqui não vai aprender nada. Vá para um lugar que tenha convénio e também porque, o meu pai adorava o Brasil, a sua maneira de ser como povo. Eles são extraordinários, depois de ganharmos a confiança deles.
A viagem aparece através dos pássaros que aparecem nos quadros?
AS: Sim, os pássaros já vêm do Porto. O mestre Gomes dizia que estávamos na época das asas. Penso que tem a ver um pouco com o regime da altura, que era bastante opressivo. As viagens também surgem, porque provém de uma exposição programada pela cooperativa árvore.
