1- Where did you born? And what is your academic training?
I was born in Novo Horizonte/SP, I currently reside in São Paulo/Capital and have completed high school.
to mine 5 years old I started to lose my hearing and at 18 years ago I lost my hearing completely and today I am able to do lip reading after a lot of training..
2- How and when you give your first contact with the Arts?
My first contact with the arts was with my 11 years, seeing my great-uncle making wooden animals.
3- How did you find this gift?
I was with my 23 years, when I went for a walk in Fernandópolis in my cousin's furniture factory. And I saw him carving a headboard.
4- What are your main influences?
I am self-taught. I'm sorry to have the influence of Rodin.
5- What materials do you use in your works?
In my works I use wood, soap stone, marble, Granite, concrete and I'm currently training in clay.
6- What is your creative process itself? What inspires you?
I feel the need to be alone. When I see a stone I can see something inside.
Exemplifying: When I saw a rock I imagined an elephant. I started carving this stone and managed to free this elephant. Or imagine a naked and freed from the stone.
My inspiration is the human body, mainly the female.
7- When you started effectively to produce or create your works?
I started creating exactly in the year of 1990.
I effectively started sculpting my creations here in São Paulo/Capital from October 2020, I've been stuck with creations for 17 years. I only made orders.
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?
Model and influence of Rodin and Camile Claudel.
9- What does art mean to you? If you were to summarize in a few words the meaning of Arts in your life…
I like the “naked art”, because I prefer to make a naked female body. Nudity reflects in a way that I don't follow standards for an aesthetic. And very clear and acceptable, a skinny, plump and chubby. I only approach the nude, but the stone that gives me the shape.
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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)
I use sculpture in wood and stone as it is a palpable art and conveys the feeling through touch where the interlocutor can feel what I felt when creating this piece..
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?
When a civil servant in Novo Horizonte, I had an accident in the spine. My orthopedic doctor saw my works and was amazed at my work and said: – this is called art! You need to research and delve into it there! there is your future.
And the second person who encouraged me, was a plastic artist from the city of Fernandópolis/SP, who saw my works and helped me to enter the circle of artists in the city.
12- You have another activity beyond art? You teaches classes, lectures etc.?
I work only with arts, Minister sculpture workshops and also sculpture courses. The lectures are testimonies of life as overcoming through the gift of art.
13- Its main exhibitions:
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- 18th Face-to-face exhibition – Expoarte at Art Lab Gallery in São Paulo de 07 to 16 of May 2021;
- Virtual exhibition “My essence” – Raphael Art Gallery – Edmundo Cavalcanti – from 27/04 to 27/05/2021;
- Virtual exhibition – “Art is Resistance” – Raphael Art Gallery – Edmundo Cavalcanti – from 22/06 to 22/07/2021;
- Solo Exhibition “Silent Beauty” – SESC Arts Circuit 2021 – New horizon/SP of 24/08 to 24/09/2021 with video-documentary “Silent Beauty” about my life and artistic trajectory.
14- Your plans for the future?
Expand my works and knowledge about sculptures.
Social networks:
Facebook: ZeNatal Torsani
Instagram: @zenatalesculturas
Documentary – silent beauty:
NH News Podcast Interview – Novo Horizonte/SP:
The duplicities in the sculptures of Zé Natal by Ana Mondini
The veins of the wood are transfigured into blood that runs down the human body, in the sculptural representation of Christ crucified, by artist Zé Natal. Sacrifice and pain are doubled by mutilation of the arms. The fading of the body is seen in the suppression of the neck, due to the cubist connection between the head and the torso. Wood chips are removed with the gouge to define the shape of the body, but they are confused with pieces torn from the flesh. All the intensity coming from the details, however, it is almost completely camouflaged by the smooth shine of the smooth, polished wood., as, by the curved and punctual contours, performed by the delicate, although, strong artist's hands.
In his sculptures, bodies of women also appear, who, for being robust and healthy, remember, easily, the mysterious Venus of Willendorf. If we take our historical look away, who docilely accept limbless statues, the absence of arms, legs and heads can reveal itself as meaningless. At the same time that the twisted movement of the trunk brings the smoothness of a body built by the idea of femininity, the cut made by the artist allows us to return to the observation about the place of origin of these shapes, namely, the marble stone. And, and, while the shapes suggest the bodies and their elements, like movement and heat, the elements of the stones also show, like hardness, texture and coldness. In other words, the artist sets a game for our perception, that oscillates between things of bodies mingling with things of stone.
Anyway, Ze Natal, who was a master at broadening his vision, in the absence of hearing, invite us to do the same, from the real listening exercise, nay, from the non-stagnation generated by predetermined impressions. Because, through the simple and the details we can revive our immediate sensations and, later, our perceptions, as long as we are able to remove the scales from our eyes.
Social networks:
Instagram: @anamondinigaleriavirtual / Facebook: @ anamondini.galeriavirtual
Instagram: @anamondiniart / Facebook: @anamondiniart
Youtube: @Ana Mondini – Interview with Artists & Related
E-mail: mondiniann@hotmail.com
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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