Living in the Body. A Lost Art

The body of work explores movement as a form of cultural expression, focusing on the energy, rhythm, and physical poetry of footvolley played on Brazilian beaches. Created through mixed-media collage and acrylic painting, the works center on the human body in motion—capturing suspended gestures, shifting weight, and fleeting shapes formed as the body moves through space.

In Brazilian culture, movement carries a unique sensibility—one where strength flows with joy, power is softened by grace, and the body becomes a vessel for connection. The beach functions as a collective, democratic stage where people of all ages and backgrounds gather to move, play, and coexist. In this project, I sought to reconnect with the uniqueness of my own culture, observing the embodied intelligence found in movement and the joy it evokes. Watching adults play feels especially meaningful, almost like a lost art in an era where play is often replaced by productivity and performance.

Footvolley, in particular, reveals an intuitive Brazilian ability to transform physical movement into spectacle—play into performance, sport into art. This embodied rhythm extends beyond the beach, echoing through Brazilian football, samba, and capoeira, where improvisation, musicality, and collective energy shape how bodies occupy space.

The figures in these works are fragmented, faceless, and layered, allowing movement itself to become the subject. Through collage, translucent color, and shifting geometry, the body becomes both structure and rhythm—at once sculptural and fleeting. Each pose captures a moment of suspension: a turn, a reach, a pause between motions. Fragments of cultural memory, color, and light are woven into the forms, suggesting a shared emotional landscape rather than a fixed location.

Ultimately, this body of work celebrates the body as an expressive instrument and the beach as a site where art, joy, and everyday life naturally intersect. These works are about presence—about power, connection, and the quiet beauty that emerges when movement flows freely. I hope the work allows the viewer to feel, even briefly, the Brazilian way of living.