The trees I could see from the top of my parents' house. Growing up, we lived in a part of the city that was not yet a fully developed neighborhood, so we had (and still have, though the area is becoming more developed now) a view of a tree-covered mountain that creates a beautiful skyline.

Alongside the impact of the sounds and noise of the city, I like to observe the domestic elements of São Paulo: the houses and buildings I pass on the way to the studio, their ornaments, and the shapes of their balconies and windows.

Everything starts with drawing. That is how I learned to let go and loosen up, both my hand and my desire to control form. Even when I was working with digital pieces, I would first draw them on paper with a black pencil, then scan the form, vectorize it, and only then turn it into a 3D model. Now it is the same with the sculptures; it always starts with a drawing.

When working with sculptural forms, it is great to be able to visualize a potential concept through 3D modeling. But because I work with materials that are constantly changing, the digital form cannot anticipate the full potential of the sculptures.

I wanted to create a work that, through its dimensions, would consume me. Something I could somehow enter and be almost entirely absorbed by. I was trying to recreate the sensation I felt in the scene I described earlier: standing before those mountains and feeling my body disappear against such vastness. It was my first large-scale piece, and it taught me that scale must be intentional.

Corrosion came first. Everything else came later. I was fascinated by the idea of salt eating away at the watercolor pigments and then leaving its own mark on the paper. The salty white stains on my walls, formed after the water damage dried, were always a curious phenomenon to me, and it was only through my work that I fully realized salt was an agent there. But the electrical attraction between salt and water, for example, only came later, almost accidentally, when I realized that salt would still draw moisture toward it even when encapsulated in resin.

When I started using salt in my watercolors, I realized that, beyond corroding the pigment, it also made the paper unstable. The paper absorbed moisture, becoming soft and wet. Over time, I felt almost as if the salt asked me to move beyond the limits of paper, as if I could finally understand the effects of water seepage on the walls of the home I grew up in, which was always threatened by rainwater infiltration. That's when I began to incorporate salt into the sculptures.

Probably in the structure of the work itself. My practice evolved from, and is informed by, the very lack of sources with which to make work. So, if we look at this more critically, both the subject and the condition of the practice are structured by colonialism. It is intrinsic. Today, most of the sculptures I make have the capacity to change the space where they are installed. The work "weeps"; its brine corrodes, and I tend to believe that the way people relate to it, especially to the idea of loss, comes directly from the human understanding of nature.

At the time, I invited the participants to reflect deeply on their own concept and understanding of nature, and then to consider the idea that it can be as beautiful as it can be destructive, malleable, and articulated. One key point of this discussion was whether or not it is still nature after our interference with it and our actions upon it. What I hoped to communicate through this idea is that nature holds far more within it than the superficial image we so often associate with it, including, but not limited to, what we have been taught about it.

I don’t view anything as a failure. When you intentionally apply salt to paper, you accept that the paper will become even more unstable than it already is. Similarly, when working with sculpture, you understand that the structure may undergo an internal reaction that you cannot prevent. For me, there is no such thing as a mistake or failure when working with a living material. There is no way to control it and, thus, no way to fail. It is a relationship between two living entities: the material and me.

I am still in that process. Working with salt makes the perception of time feel very dilated. It demands patience. I am, for instance, still intrigued by the changes actively happening to works I made more than a year ago. The sculpture Orvalho (Dew), 2025, is currently on view at an institution in Rio de Janeiro, a city much more humid than São Paulo, where the work was created and first exhibited. The work has changed significantly. With each passing day, it presents new surprises. I like to say that I want to be alive to witness what these works become in the future. That's an answer I don't have.

Let's again take Dew (2025) as an example. This piece was initially shown in São Paulo during a particularly humid month, in a room dedicated solely to it, very close to a restroom. The work cried so much that its tears left permanent marks on the gallery floor. Now the work is on view in Rio de Janeiro, where it has absorbed so much moisture that salt is beginning to recrystallize from the brine on its surface.

My solo exhibition Perpétuo, on the other hand, took place between July and August in São Paulo, the driest time of year here in the city. So, during this exhibition, none of the sculptures "cried." On the final day of the show, however, a sudden morning storm occurred, which I couldn't have predicted either. By the time the exhibition closed, some of the works were wet.

So, even if I wanted to, I couldn't plan how the sculptures would react to each location. Even if I know the climatic conditions of a certain site for a specific period of time, something unforeseen can happen. Pérpetuo was a reminder to myself, too: the artwork is alive in a way that transcends my intentions. I might wish for it to "cry" three times as much, but it will only react if the conditions allow. I like to respect that without trying to mimic the effect or artificially create the conditions for it to happen. The work isn't only about water; it is also about drought.

This work was not conceived with the viewer's body in mind. Instead, I wanted to create a sculpture made entirely of one material, which, in this case, is salt. I had this desire for the work to be a protective barrier, something that would almost hide the world of secrets the works carry. With the purest composition of all the works, it cleanses and safeguards the intimate essence of the show. But the scale of all the works, including this one, and their significant weight do shape how the viewer might enter the show. Maybe it takes a certain courage for a passerby to be curious enough about what lies within the gallery.

Nothing in my work is merely metaphorical or fabricated. There is a reason for the dimensions of each piece that comes from intimate secrets that don't reveal themselves so easily. Maybe it is a body, maybe it is a tomb, maybe it is something else. Maybe it is a tomb for a body of work that was once a bit ornamental. But I dislike the idea of directing every aspect of the work, as if I am paving an entire path toward understanding. Hopefully, it is open enough for other considerations. I wanted to make a sculpture that presents the material before the form. Even as the artist, mine isn't the only truth.

All of them, as they all form the structure of my thinking regarding this material. But to single one out: spirituality requires a level of intimacy that demands a great deal of courage. This involves creating a space between my own will and the intent of the work. At times, I find it challenging to find that courage. It takes time for silence to emerge between the act of trying and observing how the material responds; that is where the divine resides.

I guess I’m just a spiritual bitch lol. But to clarify, I didn't come up with that term. It's not my intention to create something new or propose a new form of abstraction. My relationship with my work and how I bring its materiality into the world might be a bit self-centered, but it primarily focuses on understanding my own relationship with this planet. But I do think it is beautiful that, once released into the world and beyond my control, my work can open up new spaces for questions, interpretations, and perceptions that hadn't been connected before.

It would be presumptuous of me to dictate what each person needs to know or believe in order to understand my work. The connection to the artwork largely depends on the viewer's openness. There isn't anything specific that must be understood, yet there is a vast world to explore. Ultimately, it comes down to how deeply someone wants to engage and to their willingness to step inside and listen rather than just seek immediate answers. I like to use my own experience as an example.

There are works or exhibitions that resonate with me only later on. I often find that I need to return, take another look, and reflect on them. I realize that no understanding is absolute; it evolves over time.

That nothing lasts forever. That the crying of the sculptures does not last forever. That we should not believe in the idea that we can control everything. That things shouldn't be kept in a single place all the time. At least, I don't believe in that, not within my work.

I tend to avoid thinking about institutional preservation or anything related to the management of my career if I think it can affect or inform my relationship with the materials. When a work is required to adapt to a specific place solely for the purpose of preserving the space where it will remain, it dies, and consequently, I die with it.

It is about accepting that neither I nor anyone else will ever have control over the works. That is the beauty of it.