Bio:
Joana Ribeiro da Silva was born in Porto, Portugal, where she lives. On the eve of entering college, she switched from the arts, which she attended in high school, to engineering, as it seemed to be a greater challenge. Later, she completed an MBA and is currently the CEO of an international fashion company. But her great passion is painting. It is in painting that she finds peace and balances herself, anxiously looking for new colors, shapes and textures. And it is with enormous discipline and inexhaustible energy that she reconciles all dimensions of her life. In her works we can find huge faces that convey feelings and large textured abstracts that reflect emotions. Her abstract paintings are a re-flection of the strongest emotions she experiences on a daily basis and are the result of several layers of color, applied with different energy to the canvas, over several days. A punchy, edgy artwork born from several feelings applied by the artist. Her works have been exposed in different art fairs in Eu-rope and are recognized by different art curators and galleries.


Artist Statement:
“My work is about feelings, is about freedom. I create free and spontaneous paintings, following extraordinary music. Each painting has the name of an inspiring song. It can be a face or an abstract painting, it can be colourful or black and white... that depends on "where" the emotion can take me. The flow of my emotions defines the colors and textures: quiet and peaceful, vibrant and passionate or dark and unsettling. Always minimalist as our essence is. Colors and textures are applied energetically on the canvas, in several layers for several days or months. Each color and texture means a specific feeling or sensation, and each layer is applied with a different energy, reflecting the emotion of the moment.
The result is always a mixture of feelings that embrace and transmit life. I use traditional techniques, mainly quality acrylic on canvas, mixed with everything I can imagine to create soft and hard textures. Big brushes, self-made squeegees and several layers of cement or plaster are part of all the paintings development.”