Aroldo de Carvalho

"For me, painting is a necessary activity above all else – to explore my inner depths in search of beautiful and balanced imagery, is like cleansing my soul.

"Over the past twenty years, I’ve been working in art direction and set design for Brazilian motion pictures. I enjoy creating alongside the director, and love the process of filmmaking because it is such a collective task. For me, the art of film is the most important aspect of all. Between the harried schedule of Brazilian film productions, I find painting to be an exercise of deceleration – the reconstitution of a personal creative space, rather than the collective space of film. It is in painting that I can exert control, searching for the best, seeking balance.

"My interest in painting first arose during my youth, during the time of the Artisan Fair of Belo Horizonte, when it began to take shape. I had a lot of friends who were artists and painters that started the artistic movement in the capital of the state of Minas Gerais. I used to roughly sketch out the mountainous landscapes of Minas Gerais. Later on I moved to Rio de Janeiro in search of what existed behind those mountains, of the ample horizons along the sea's edge. I abandoned a course I was taking in agronomy to begin studying architecture.

"To have a place to exhibit my works stimulates creativity; I paint so that my art may be seen, I paint to create something pleasurable for the eyes. The great part about Novica is that it makes art from one world available for another."