Rafaella
June 2003
100 x 70 cms
Acrylic on canvas
[Lost due to improper storage, resulting in damage due to mold]
Rafaella.jpg
100 x 70 cms
Plotter print on paper
[Lost due to improper storage, resulting in damage due to mold]
Excerpt from the book "Retratos" ["Portraits"], final work from the BA Fine Arts course at FAAP:
Rafaella met me as a random face in the crowd who coincidentally passed her by at the square in FAAP while her architecture class was showcasing work. I got there, walked around in slow steps watching, exchanged half a dozen words with other people before addressing her directly. A chance event, right?
I, in fact, had already known her for a while. Way before she cut her hair short like that and dyed it burgundy red. Way before the piercings that so contrasted with her soft, gentle face. I suppose I could say I had always been there. Ever since she got into college and crossed my way somewhere along the halls. I began to watch her from afar, from the balcony while she was down there, drawing those terrible copies of statues by Aleijadinho, or sitting on the same square I mentioned, talking to a friend. Or perhaps napping on the stone benches. At one point, she stayed still almost long enough to be sketched. At that time, she had that very strange effect on me, of wanting to run away because I felt inadequate or too weird; and at the same time wanting to stay and look at her and, who knows, be looked at. It wasn't yet the time to present myself. In these conditions, I would have perhaps said or done something silly, or rushed into things.
I followed her progress, as she cut and dyed her hair, as the make up became more elaborate and all that princess-like behavior gave way to a more alternative look, while she got herself a boyfriend named Bruno... At a very initial stage, perhaps I wanted that beauty and those manners to myself. But then it was too late: she was with Bruno and I was deciding between Tinkerbell and Lee. So I resolved to paint her portrait instead.
I walked around for a while carrying an ISO 400 filme amidst my belongings. Stupid idea of renting one of the college's cameras with a zoom lens and shooting her without her knowing, like I tried to do with Lilly. And then I remembered the terrible impression it caused on her when she found out and her advice one it was all explained.
Very well, another approach then.
The idea of simply coming out of nowhere and asking to take her picture was not only stupidly invasive, as well as worthy of a resounding negative. I needed to at least be stop being a completely unknown face. Let her at least remember she had seen me before. Thus, that afternoon when the architecture class went out to show their work seemed to fit perfectly. The following week. Rafaella was already waving at me when we crossed paths around the hallways. It occurred to me at the time that I was no longer approaching her to woo her. At least not for the usual passionate reasons. I now wanted more than anything else just to have that picture: a new face to study, draw, paint. The conquest of that portrait.
On a random morning, I stopped Rafaella on the hallway and explained it all. What a load off my shoulders! So much easier and friendlier than the game of espionage that happened with Lilly. On that very same day, I took the picture with a digital camera: click.
Rafaella smiled an ambiguous smile: it was cute, but at the same time it was the smile of a witty, savvy person. A touch of malice. Pared with eyes that, when smiling, almost seemed to be closed, in a way that one could barely see the whites of her eyes. But the ambiguity wasn't in the smile alone. Rafaella was almost entirely a childish figure, so small that she was. But she dyed her hair, pierced her body, altered herself with each passing week.
That portrait took almost a month to be done. Acrylics: had I used oils, it would take even longer. But it wasn't just that. Once it dried out, acrylic formed a thin layer of plastic. Artificial matter. As artificial perhaps as that relationship with Rafaella, which had started out of a very specific interest. I knew other girls I had portrayed intimately, and the painting seemed to revolve around our relationship. I would submit to the materiality of oil paint in order to spend more time with these images, to apply myself as I had applied myself to the friendship. But this one, and her predecessor Lilly, were relationships that revolved around the painting. Artificial. Would there be an aftermath, once the painting was done?
At the time, I was working in the classrooms at FAAP, right after class. A lot of people would show up there and would recognize the girl in the painting. I felt proud of that. At the same time, at home, I toyed with painting the same portrait on a computer program. And the obvious correlation between computers and artificiality came to mind. I wasn't painting on canvases or using paint. Come to think of it, I wasn't even painting. Painting would happen once some machine of my choosing printed that image on paper of my choosing. Paint on surface. And there were several options of paint and surface and consequently several different versions of that work. But until then, this image would remain in an ethereal, latent format. What to do with it?
Likewise, what to do with Rafaella? Where would this very experimental relationship evolve to? After a while, I realized that, despite enjoying her little universe of extravagantly pretty clothes, parties and architecture, I obviously wasn't a part of that, as much as I wanted to be. There was no sort of resonance between us. That is to say, there was nothing outside of that painted portrait that would keep us together. And this, once the painting was finished, we went back to waving at each other in the hallways, and chatting only about casual and superficial topics.
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