Three questions to Sara Gonçalves
About Sara Gonçalves
Sara Gonçalves is a painter whose works evoke a sense of familiarity through an ethereal lens on everyday objects, scenarios, interactions, and ways of living. She creates dynamic, emotionally charged compositions with bold expressiveness, blending technical precision and creative freedom.
How did art enter your life? Tell us about your artistic journey.
Art has always been in my life in many ways. My father is a painter, so I grew up surrounded by art and books, visited many museums and exhibitions growing up, and was always very interested in them. I also spent a lot of time painting with my dad in his atelier. Besides this, I have practiced ballet for 12 years and started when I was really young, about 3 years old,so since a very young age, I expressed myself through various mediums, and that is something that has persisted until today.
How does your ballet background influence your painting, and how do you connect Sara the ballet dancer to Sara the painter?
Ballet is a practice that requires a lot of consistency and discipline, which is something that I bring into every area of my life.It is also a practice that enchants the viewer through shapes and forms, elegance and rhythm, not very different from painting in that regard. I think Sara, the ballet dancer, is no longer who I am, but it definitely influences who Sara the painter is, since I take the practice in my studio with that same consistency and discipline I gained at a young age. Painting took the center stage as the main form of expression for me today, and that's where I put all my feelings, thoughts and experiences. Dance has become more of a practice to let loose, and relax, bring joy into my life, and is something I do only for myself, in private.
Your first solo exhibition was titled "Inevitável" (Inevitable). What feels inevitable in your artistic practice right now? What inspires you?
I called that exhibition Inevitable because at the time (2020) it had been 2 years since I started painting seriously again and I felt that life took me back to painting, in the mysterious way life does, taking us places we didn't know we wanted to go but exactly where we need to be.
What inspires me is life, anything in life really, from a conversation I have, or hear from somebody else, simple gestures, objects, reflections, dreams even. I paint as a way to exist. A lot of things that are sometimes hard in our day-to-day, painting makes them beautiful, gives them a different meaning and even helps me see them in different ways. Other times, painting is really about nothing that can be described by words, but instead is a reflection of visual moments that imprint in my mind. As a painter, I feel like the most inevitable thing that remains throughout my life is to look.To look around, in depth, or with distance, to look inside and to look for the painting that already exists but is waiting to be found.
Our selection of Sara's works
