1- Where did you born? And what is your academic training?
I was born in São Paulo, but I've lived most of my life in São Carlos, Interior of São Paulo.
In high school I studied teaching and later graduated in Psychology at UFSCar.
2- How and when you give your first contact with the Arts?
I spent my childhood watching my maternal grandmother create and recreate… from roots she made sculptures, made of paper flowers, patchwork quilts. She created all the time. I was deeply influenced by your constant doing. was a simple person, with few financial resources, but with extraordinary creativity. She was able to see possibilities where no one saw. I was created in the middle of lines, papers, brushes and paints. Manual arts were always present in my childhood and adolescence.
3- How did you find this gift?
What do I do today with paper and papier mache started approximately 15 years, my youngest son, he arrived from school with a piece of papier-mâché dough in his hands and handed it to me along with a message from the teacher: the teacher asked me to give it to you and said you would know what to do with it (the teacher knew I liked to paint and create) and so my encounter with papier-mâché happened. From that day onwards I started researching and testing ways to work papier mache.
4- What are your main influences?
I started making crafts with papier mache and at that time my main influence was from Minas Gerais crafts. I currently teach craft techniques that I make and I dedicate myself to studying a way to mix craft elements to compose my artworks. I do this intuitively, I'm not consciously inspired by any other artist.
5- What materials do you use in your works?
I use as much materials as possible that are discarded. Papers, cardboard, reused coffee filters, tubes, glass, seeds and branches collected from the ground or from pruning. I occasionally use fire to make some compositions.
6- What is your creative process itself? What inspires you?
The possibility of transforming what would be discarded into something new. The possibility to re-signify objects and recreate through accessible resources, this is highly inspiring to me. The creation process appears in the attentive look around me and inside me.
7- When you started effectively to produce or create your works?
I contacted the technician approximately 15 years. I literally played papier mache and this game grew and in the year of 2019 I left my job as a psychologist and started to dedicate myself fully to work with papier mache. At the beginning my work was only with crafts.. In the beginning of 2020 I started creating pieces involving the pandemic theme. I started to participate in virtual exhibitions.
8- Art is an intellectual production exquisite, where emotions are embedded in the context of creation, but in art history, we see that many artists are derived from other, following technical and artistic movements through time, you own any model or influence of any artist? Who would be?
I know some artists who work with papier-mâché, but I don't have a model or influence from any specific artist, at least consciously. I'm developing my way of expression where I seek to integrate craft elements into my art.
9- What does art mean to you? If you were to summarize in a few words the meaning of Arts in your life…
The art is the possibility of transforming, brings the hope that everything can be redefined and that this is possible with accessible resources.
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10- What techniques do you use to express their ideas, feelings and perceptions about the world? (Whether it is through painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, photography… or uses several techniques in order to make a mix of different art forms).
Use as base or reuse paper, and from that I mix collages, paintings, drawings, fire. I try to mix, make a mix, and my biggest challenge at the moment is to integrate art and craft in the same composition.
11- Every artist has his mentor, that person whom you mirrored that encouraged and inspired you to follow this career you, going ahead and taking your dreams the other expression levels, who this person is and how it introduced you in the art world?
I have a mentor and a godmother. My mentor is the Zillah Nodari. When I decided to leave my previous profession and make my art my current profession, I took the Art and Profession course with Zillah Nodari, in this course she led me to review and reformulate many concepts and beliefs that limited my vision.. It helped me start my path as an artist.
I said I have a godmother, I call her godmother because she encouraged and encouraged me, supporting me and being an instrument for my growth, my godmother is the artist Maria José Oliveira.
12- You have another activity beyond art? You teaches classes, lectures etc.?
Before the Pandemic, I held workshops with papier mache and papietagem techniques. During this period of the Pandemic I created a series on IGTV that I called Series 4 Minutes. Every Wednesday at 4 pm I make a video of 4 minutes where I show you step by step sustainable handicraft pieces.
13- Its major national and international exhibitions and their awards?
- Virtual exhibition “Art is resistance” – Raphael Art Gallery – Year 2021
Organization and direction - Edmundo Cavalcanti - Virtual exhibition "MY ESSENCE" – Raphael Art Gallery – Year 2021
organization and direction -Edmund Chandra - Virtual Exhibition "IMPACTED BY ART" – Year 2021
organization and direction – Luciene Yahweh
- Virtual Exhibition "ART WITHOUT LIMITS" – Raphael Art Galley – Year 2020
organization and direction -Edmund Chandra - INVITE EXPOART – Year 2020
Project by Aparecida Felipe Curated by Guto Lemes
Coordinators: Aparecida Felipe and Luciane Lima - Collective exhibition "ARTE EM SQUARES" – Year 2020
Unicentro's Board of Culture
14- Your plans for the future?
Keep improving my work and become a reference in my area. I plan to continue disseminating and teaching papier mache techniques for free so that more people can have access to this universe so rich and transforming.
15- In your opinion what is the future of Brazilian art and its artists? (in the general context) and why so many artists are giving preference to show their work in international exhibitions despite high costs?
International exhibitions offer visibility in a universe where art is more valued, however, few artists can invest in this way..
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Art more than ever has proved to be a savior, and I hope that it starts to be valued in due measure., that the value extends to all artists, here in our country.
Social Media:
Facebook: Paper World
Instagram: @paperworld.hbw
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LIFE IN THE ART OF
HELEN BETUNE WOLF
BY
ANA MONDINI
through your work, artist Helen Betune Wolf offers two alternatives to save the planet.
The first concerns the material reused to compose your pieces, whose reuse contributes to reducing pollution in the world.
Through the reused coffee filter, which is one of its main material sources, the artist transforms industrialized matter and, primarily, retreat from nature, in beautiful sculptures, whose form refers, usually, to natural elements.
In your sculptures of flowers and butterflies, for example, we can see the artist's unique trait, manifested by the smoothness given to the paper, due to faded colors, used in the dyeing of the material. of this process, result in floral with an air of naturalness and great resemblance to the real.
The second alternative, refers to the emotion emanating from each of his works, more precisely, to the great sensitivity and delicacy that the artist gives to her work made in papier-mâché, that form fruits, cacti, little birds, pandas, as, characters linked to faith.
A sustainable work, not just because it reuses materials, but, also, because the artist is able to live amid controversial emotions arising from an unfavorable scenario, in which all humanity is, and has the power to transform them into necessary and urgent affection.
Anyway, either figuratively, be in the literal, the artist Helen Betune expresses a loving and refined look at what is urgent, namely, the care of nature, and, in particular, the giving of life to our souls.
Social networks:
Instagram: @anamondinigaleriavirtual / Facebook: @ anamondini.galeriavirtual
Instagram: @anamondiniart / Facebook: @anamondiniart
Youtube: @Ana Mondini – Interview with Artists & Related
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EDMUNDO CAVALCANTI
São Paulo – Brasil
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Columnist at Website Obras de Arte
E-mail: cavalcanti.edmundo@gmail.com