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Rita da Costa is a painter in Lisbon, Portugal.
This site contains a simple portfolio of work, bio and contact information.
Rita dos Santos Alves da Costa, was born in Benfica, June 29th, 1980, and now lives in Sintra. She is currently finishing her painting degree at the University of Fine Arts in Lisbon, Portugal.
Rita has participated in collective and individual expositions:
Individual Exposition, Bairro Alto, Lisbon, May 2004
Individual Exposition, Orlando Gallery Moral, Ericeira, March 2004
Collective exposition, "Art and Feminism", Vendas Novas, March 2004
Individual Exposition, Society Guillerme Cossoul, Lisbon, Febuary 2004
Collective Exposition, Matos Gallery Blacksmith, Lisbon, December 2003
Collective Exposition, Palace of Correio Velho, Lisbon, November 2003
International exposition of Plastic Arts, Vendas Novas, November 2003
Collective exposition, Gallery of Art of the Moura, October 2003
Collective Photograph exposition, Gallery of the City council of the Moura, October 2003
Individual Photograph exposition, Propaganda Bar, Sintra, October 2002
Individual Painting exposition, Propaganda Bar, Sintra, September 2002
Paintings by Rita da Costa
Artist's statement
My work could be defined as a passage of the memory through time, a diffusion of details to achieve synthesis. Through a process that embraces mutations, the painter travels from the concrete to more abstract and essential.
Thus, in my first phase, called "Memory Reflexes", the moments, filled with faces or landscapes, are as though reflected in water and distorted by its ripples. Our sensorial perception is subjective; the interpretation that we make almost always is deformed and illusionary. Thus, the subject is assumed through the gesture and construction of the figure. The figure is increasingly deformed, its contours and colors are dissolved into one another and eventually lost, as though sunk deep into the abyss.
In my second phase, the landscape or scene becomes completely abstract, the moment is confused, as if the speed of the scene increased and thus has become imperceptible. Here, the colors and the components of the composition are dissolved in spots, giving only general information via the tonalities of the scene and localization of greater or minor density of elements.
In the third phase, a clear summary of momentary perception and passing of the time is constructed, devoid of a conclusion, and reduced to its essence. In this phase, the search of the essential of each scene leads to the meeting of the eastern drawing of the Zen philosophy, paintings consisting of a single gesture, a moment captured in time. The painter’s gesture is the focus of the painting, captured against a neutral backdrop, emphasizing the emptiness.
Rita da Costa
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