I grew up in a house in Ipanema, in Rio de Janeiro. My father, who was an engineer, built the house. He used to go to auctions to buy paintings, tapestries, sacred art and old furniture. Although I didn’t think of being an artist at that time, I grew up surrounded by beautiful things. We lived in the city, but my family also owned a farm, Fazenda Bom Retiro, where I spent most of my vacations. The natural world was my first passion. I eventually went to college and studied agronomy. The landscapes that I currently paint somehow bring me back full circle.

After I graduated from college, I went to Paris, where I lived for five years. That’s where my art involvement began. I did art photography for a while and had photos published in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the International Herald Tribune. There, in Paris, I met John Foy, a poet, who would become my husband.

In 1990 we moved to New York, and I discovered The Art Students League, where I enrolled in drawing classes. I studied at the League from 1991 to 1995. My teachers at the time were Harvey Dinnerstein for drawing and painting, and Sydney Simon for sculpture. I became a life member of the League.

For the next few years, I was busy with motherhood. Art eventually crept back into my life. One morning, looking at my kids sleeping in the living room with the natural light enveloping them, I went to my art closet (which I hadn’t opened for years) and found all I needed to draw in charcoal. I soon discovered the medium of pastel. I went back to the League and studied with Richard Pionk and Ellen Eagle. Eventually, I became a member of the Pastel Society of America, where I studied with Diana De Santis. Both Ellen and Diana are former students of Dinnerstein’s, committed to the tradition of representational painting.

Bob Palevitz was also influential in my development as an artist. He introduced me to the art of painting still life in oil, under natural light, in his New York studio. He taught me about space, mass, light and the atmosphere or the air that surrounds the objects. He also introduced me to the art of Fantin Latour.

In 2012 I returned to The Art Students League and signed up for classes with Henry Finkelstein, who is an abstract expressionist landscape & still life painter. Henry is a departure from my previous teachers. His main concerns are space, rhythm, color and emotion. He is not interested in depiction, but in what one has to say about the subject. He is also a great teacher. I’ve been learning a lot from him. Henry teaches an approach that combines abstract with classical art and has inspired me to study Titian, Renoir and Corot. I’m currently Henry’s class monitor.

My art is always evolving and changing as I grow as an artist striving to do justice to my way of looking at the world.