Marcela

Marcela

April 2003

60 x 50 cms

Oil on acrylic paint on canvas

Private collection of Marcela Rebelo Tiboni

Excerpt from the book "Retratos" ["Portraits"], final work from the BA Fine Arts course at FAAP: 

When Marcela joined the art course, a careless teacher told her that she had no skill nor future in the arts. In fact, Marcela wasn't even that interested in the course. She'd rather have joined physical education or sports. But that comment moved her, and throughout those four years, she set out to prove to everyone that she could be the best artist of them all. 

Marcela was a strong presence in the classroom. Opinionated, impetuous. Never keeping quiet when something was wrong. In terms of ethics, values and such, she seemed to be the most righteous of us all. I suppose it was precisely because she didn't have that initial desire to be an artist, that she had a way of thinking that was different from anyone else's: while we were lead by delusions of grandeur, presumptions and excessively subjective daydreams, Marcela was concerned with doing the right thing. Stating only what she knew for certain and not giving any opinion on the rest. I do not mean by this that she was excessively rational. On the contrary, she could very well react emotionally on certain occasions. Just as she knew there was a time for emotion and a time for objective thinking. And thus, we had our first art critic for a while. This very straightforward, mature attitude rendered her the admiration of a lot of people, including that of a certain careless teacher. And mine. There was nothing in this admiration that bordered on physical affection. It was a professional admiration, of having someone to look up to, respecting someone's opinions. 

On the first few months, I watched Marcela's actions in class trying to stay out of her focus. I was concerned she would attack my egotism, my presumptions, show me my foolishness. Afraid she would say one of those undeniable truths I was still not ready for, and that it would make me lose faith in what I did. Interesting: during the last semester, I faced that same concern when facing my tutor on a weekly basis. But as the semesters went on, the course taught us humility, decimating those initial presumptions. Many people stated going through a phase of utter disbelief in their own work, stagnation, even a change of mind. I was left with the impression that I was the last one to go through those things. Obviously: I was hard-headed... Marcela was, back then, the one person who most vehemently argued against my stubbornness. Even mentioning at some point that we had something of a "love-hate relationship". We emerged from those times of mid-course discomfort a bit closer to each other. 

It was then that a different and more pleasant time began for us. We talked a lot about everything. Marcela read a lot. She had a real compulsion for it. Now with a greater conviction about the art career, she would tackle the used bookstores downtown after books in the field. She had a special taste for artist biographies. We would daydream about things she had picked here and there about the lives of so many people, while I helped her with some of her works. 

Marcela never had a detailed grasp on methods.She didn't draw or paint, was allergic to paint thinners and had no patience to deal with analog cameras. And that's where I came in, photographing the beginning of what would, years later, be her final work. She even paid me some symbolic value once. I didn't want to take it, but she refused to take the money back. 

We'd snap entire rolls of film. She'd bring the developed pictures the following day. I'm not sure if she ever managed to keep it all: it would amount to several stacks of pictures. And paint. Lots of paint. Which she would spread on herself, let run in thin streaks, or paint her face with it and, sometimes, paint an entire canvas in a single color. 

I decided to paint her portrait on an impulse. Just like that, with no apparent reason. It would be a metalinguistic thing: a work of art made with another work of art. Perfect: I even kept one of the canvases she had covered in a thick layer of white acrylic paint. And two pictures that were kept on my computer for so long that eventually I forgot about them. I never carried out those two pictures. They lack a certain something, a sense of wonder. A subjective feeling that would drive me. 

Some time later, she came up with a new batch of pictures. This time, someone else had been behind the camera. And she had been pictured there, painting rectangles on her face. She spread the pictures in one of the tables at the university, while a teacher gave out the critique. And then an empathy hit me with one of those pictures. One with stranger, harder light. The face so close, that I could see all the different skin tones. A Gerhard Richter-like strangeness. I asked for the picture, this time feeling more determined to carry out the work. 

At the time, Marcela had rented a place to use as a studio, along with other classmates. They called it Ateliê Cincopias (a play on the Portuguese words for "syncope" and "five sinks", because that's how many there were in the house...). That's where I worked on the portrait. My sitter never came over while I painted. Responsible and active as she was, she was always working late. As a guide on an exhibit somewhere. Always doing the right thing. But she came at night, when I had already gone to my other university course, and commented on it the next morning, feeling proud and giddy like a child, about what she thought of the painting. 

On the final months of the art course, Marcela was involved in several alternative exhibits with the girls from the studio. Despite the difficulties and the arguments between them, which I witnessed, I felt an enormous desire to perhaps join the group the following year. And maybe paint them all, for whom I felt a limitless admiration.