CASTRES
 La Dépêche - Mireille Moley - 29
May 2008
Exhibition at the Casa de Espana:
"Writings Wanderings" by Anna Dos Santos
In a very friendly atmosphere , the Association "Casa de Espana" opened the
preview exhibition by Anna Dos Santos whose paintings set off all the light
in Portugal" announced Maribel Auger, President of la Casa. Mixed with the colours
of the earth the young painter comes from but also with other earth colours
from other lands, the series of paintings mixes painting, literature, music
as a reflection of the artist 's soul open to all Arts. Some paintings are sometimes
connected to memories of places fixed forever in the wake of Anna's many travels.
She explains she works on her canvas laid flat on the floor, using papers worn
by time, often turned yellow, which bear the mark of accidents and then she
builds up her work with layers of inks and acrylics. Hence materials create
their own routes that might look like landscapes. Bits of scores step in. Writings
come to the fore, often in different languages like an open dialogue. Green
is a permanent colour in the artist's latest creations « since I arrived in
the Sidobre » she surmises. When presenting Anna's exhibition, Claude Escaffre,
Vice President of the Casa de Espana, also mentioned « colours that organise
themselves in a triumphant symphony around the poetry of words ».
Anna Dos Santos has studied Plastic Arts at the university of Aix-en-Provence
before studying in Toulouse where she next taught Art to secondary school pupils.
While she took part in many group or individual exhibitions, she was twice awarded
major Prizes in 2006 and 2007.
This exhibition will be travelling on since after Castres, it will be shown
at the Maison d'Occitanie in Toulouse before moving to the Lot and then come
back to the Tarn in September. The artist offers to meet her every Saturday
morning between 10.00 and 12.00 to share on this exhibition which will be shown
util 14 June 2008.
 Press information - Claude Escaffre - 17 May 2008
Welcome to the Casa de Espana, Anna!
Through his or her art, the artist does excite our senses and arouse our emotions.
Anna Dos Santos is obviously one of those. Recently settled in Castres, Anna
Dos Santos has chosen to reveal her latest paintings entitled « Writings Wanderings
» in the Casa de Espana. Paper with shades of writing on it or music scores,
hence fraught with memories, is the element that triggers off the whole creative
process. Colours organise themselves in a triumphant symphony around the poetry
of words whose harmony creates wonderful shock waves. Playing their part as
though accomplices, the bits of written paper complement and attract one another,
find a harmony and an echo among themselves like in a poem by Baudelaire. The
artist's wand, turned into a brush in this case, directs the interpenetration
of the abstract (thought and writing) and the real to translate energies, sensations
experienced through various elements, their interference and interaction. This
abstract painting, implicitly intellectual, hits home. It cannot leave anyone
unaffected, for it is the expression of a somewhat unexpected bringing together
of different components which is both a fortunate and lively combination, both
a fortunate and lively meeting : papers, canvas, pure or diluted inks, acrylics,
binders...
An atmosphere of intense silence does emanate from the whole exhibition. In
those paintings, words, sounds and tones reflect each other. For Anna Dos Santos,
those bits of writing are traces of reading, connections between the artist
and the sensitive world, travel tales, powerful language messages, so many muticultural
expressions to which she is used and strongly attached. And so very much like
Arthur Rimbaud who used to think that poetry was the result of the alchemy of
words and senses, Anna Dos Santos's painting is the result of an alchemy of
colours and taste. The work takes shape on canvas and becomes in turn a different
language fraught with senses that links together human beings from different
cultures. It is indeed a dialogue open to a multi-coloured world.
Anna Dos Santos will welcome the public on Saturdays from 10 am until 12 am
at the Casa de Espana in Castres from 17 May until 14 June 2008.
Mr Claude ESCAFFRE, Vice-President of the
Association Casa de Espana of Tarn
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