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Brazilian Artist Embraces Life in Canada |
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 When artist Chiara Costa moved to Vernon last year with her new husband she was forced to leave most of her work behind her. Five plane flights would have been just too hard on it. She left behind a career and a country, but is enthusiastically embracing the new ones.
About the career change she said, “As an English teacher (in Brazil) I drew on weekends. At night I had to correct lessons. This is a whole new start for me. It is difficult to follow art as a profession there. In Canada more people are interested in buying art.”
About the country she had this to say, “It’s not too difficult because I speak the language. The people are warm and that compensates for the cold weather. This was my first winter ever.”
Costa’s home is a city called Valadad in southeast Brazil that is roughly the size of Kelowna. There is a mountain nearby that attracts international paragliders and this is where Vernonite Mike Nelson was when they met and fell in love. “It was very romantic,” she said. Costa has been drawing and speaking English since she was little, thanks to her mother, a teacher, writer and artist who has been a great inspiration to her.
Now, in a new studio being built for her by Nelson on a beautiful table that he has also created for her, she is devoting her time to art. She has created a showcase of sample portraits, one of which was chosen for a juried exhibition at Vertigo Gallery in Vernon in March. “This is a window for me that was opened. I am very grateful and nothing’s going to hold me back,” she said.
She has a preference for dry mediums and is nowadays gravitating to charcoal. The sparkle of personality shines through her meticulous layers. She believes that her black and white work has more impact, but offers a choice of mediums to customers.
“A professional has to have a strong sense of depth and perspective. She must master light and shade,” she said. “With photo-realism you can’t rush it. The more time I spend on it the closer to perfection it gets. I took three weeks on Marilyn (Munroe). Smaller portraits still take a week. I usually use photos as a reference because people can’t pose for 80 hours!”
Children from Uganda are a recent source of new inspiration for Costa since she met the Watoto Foundation choir. “I got so inspired that I drew Dennis in one day,” she said. “Brazil and Africa have a close bond historically, socially and culturally. I always wanted to see Africa and get to know the people there. I hope to have an exhibition of orphans looking for sponsors by early next year. I would like to donate part of the profits to the Foundation.”
Costa believes that she is blessed to have such a supportive husband. He is interested in her works in progress and stops frequently to check in on her progress. According to him, he was preparing himself to say, “That’s nice,” when she offered to show him her art after they met. He was amazed to realize that it was professional quality and decided to help her to make a career out of what she loves, just as he has done with restoring old cars.
In the future they want to travel around Canada participating in art shows and transform a barn on the Silver Star property into a gallery.
Costa likes to say of art, “Art is a powerful tool of communication. Different mediums are languages. Each artist speaks his own dialect. I want to speak a universal dialect.”
See Costa’s work at www.alexisarts.com. Contact her at
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or 542-2209.
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