“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
— Pablo Picasso
In her recent gouaches, Bela Silva transforms color and gesture into records of fleeting, unrepeatable moments. Each brushstroke emerges from an immediate intuition, as though she allowed her hand to follow the current of imagination without restraint. This spontaneity, where accident and revelation coexist, infuses the works with a striking humanity. Color, here, is not simply an aesthetic device but a vital force, inseparable from the artist’s sensibility. It is in this space, suspended between free gesture and cultural memory, that Silva locates her most authentic terrain: each painting the singular trace of an irretrievable instant.
“I am Portuguese, I am American, I am Belgian…”
This declaration is not about geography but identity. A plural figure, Bela Silva creates, whether in clay or on paper, a universe where imagination acquires form, color, and presence.
Born in Lisbon, she studied sculpture in Lisbon, Porto, and Norwich before joining the Art Institute of Chicago, where she embraced an experimental freedom across sculpture, ceramics, fashion, foundry, and photography. Later, she lived between Lisbon, Paris, and Brussels, while collaborating with Hermès, Ginori 1735, Vista Alegre, and Bordallo Pinheiro, and exhibiting in museums in Portugal, France, Brazil, and the United States. She was the first Portuguese artist to design a carré for Hermès (La Maison des Oiseaux Parleurs).
