This PDP was elaborated as an interview, inspired by the interviews with Francis Bacon. About 100 people were invited to carry the questions through, of which only a few had answered the request. The interviewers are Naíma Popp (journalist), Aty Sales (broadcaster), Donald Short (art teacher), Eugenio Grazini (chemical engineer), Eliana Paleo Mourão (engineer), Amer Shomali (animator), Carolina Cluca (moviemaker) and Leandro Pinho (fine artist). Some of the interviews were recorded and other written. None of the questions were left without being answered however similar questions have been edited in way to prevent unnecessary repetitions.

Interviews made in the period of June, July and August of 2008.

Interviewer: Tell me your name, age and occupation.

Rafael: Rafael Tondi Grazini, 25, fine artist.

Interviewer: For how long have you been painting?

Rafael: This is a good question for the fine artists. I find that we are artists not because we start to paint, but because we never stop. After all, everybody plays of painting when children.

Interviewer: In which moment did you recognised yourself as a fine artist?

Rafael: I do not have the slightest idea. In the college graduation we joked with each other: “finally, now we are fine artists!” I think that to be a fine artist is more characterised by the way as you see and interpret the world then by the ability to produce works. The fine artist is more in the "eye" and in the conscious then in the hand.

Interviewer: Why did you want to study and to work in Europe?

Rafael: I depleted the obvious possibilities of work in Brazil. I was unemployed, little bored of everything and hated to imagine a globe and my movement over it, back and forward, back and forward, in the same places, same streets, same people. I always wanted to leave the country and I decided that the time would be this. I did not have anything else holding me there. I wanted to leave Brazil and establish myself here, since I was not standing the political situation. Europe was a more thought decision. My idea was to go to Canada. I checked some universities but none awaken great interest on me. And the best ones were in the Franc-Canadian region, that is, lessons in French, language that I do not speak. Later I changed the plans aiming to U.S.A., but in the general panorama of things I realized that in my area, I would have to come to Europe, to know countries, cultures, museums that only exist here. Qualities of the old world.

Interviewer: For how long have you been there?

Rafael: About 9 months, or 10. I do not know.

Interviewer: Why is the nude present in the majority of your works? The reason would be the same, as much in these current works as in the others that you put in the website? Why the fixation for the explicit? These subjects had always been in first plan in your works?

Rafael: The nude and the sex are recurrent subjects in my work, but they were not my first option. That was something that I developed to come in this result and thematic. I always try to run away and to make something different, since erotic works are not well seen in all the places. I always end up relating sex as a form to represent different ideas, that is, is not necessarily that I am using the nude to always speak of the same thing, but I use it as tool. I believe sex as a guarded primal force in the human being, and our society all is based on this game, supported in 2 pillars: money and sex. Anyway, all of my works that represent nudes or explicit scenes do not contain the same message, in fact I have divergent works conceptually inside of the same aesthetic line. When younger I liked the explicit, with the idea to shock, since the market and the world in itself are replete of images and it was a way to call for attention, today I am not worried about the shock anymore, but I do not discard making something if the possibility of the result to be read as explicit exists, simply because I do not believe in censorship. I do not appreciate this kind of hypocrisy. Returning to the idea of sex and idiosyncrasies, I believe that I started to have a more critical vision because of the place where I was raised, Santo André. I lived all my life in the block of the transvestites and the prostitutes, and not a day passed in my life that I have not seen one of the two sorts. I used to go to school by the street of the transvestites, that in the morning were hitchhiking for their houses, and came back by the street of the prostitutes, starting the day of work. Even on Sunday mornings going to the country club I used to see bizarre scenes. And after some time you start to question why the traffic is so intense in that region during the night, the roles that the workers and customers play.

Interviewer: So the fact to use sex images is a result, mainly, to this contact with transvestites and prostitutes?

Rafael: No, the truth is that this contact only opened the perception to this aspect. Later it came the Internet and consolidated some concepts. It has much of my concept of sex, or of what it would have to be the sex, in the artworks.

Interviewer: Amongst the nudes, I see artworks that go from the erotic to the eschatologic, and artworks that could join both, if that is possible. How do you see this, is there an intention, in instigating and shocking?

Rafael: Yes. I think that the work has to be instigating to grab the attention of the audience. And I also enjoy provoking, although I’m not concerned with the shock anymore It is good that they leave the exposition scratching their heads.

Interviewer: The people who you portray really exist?

Rafael: Yes.

Interviewer: Then they are scenes created?

Rafael: They are. Carefully created, in fact. Each element, curves, contrast and aspect of the composition.

Interviewer: And how does it work? Do you ask for the women to help you?

Rafael: Yes, I do ask. In this last project I depended completely on this to be honest. My works have always been criticised by having too much control, thus resembling itself with illustrations. I was introduced to a series of interviews with the artist Francis Bacon, and adored his relation with the accident in the painting. It was not nothing obvious as Pollock, but something related to Picasso, who used to say that he would have to destroy a work to consider it finished. Bacon, when having to much control over the work, destroyed it. I liked this aspect, so divergent of mine, and decided to try it in my own work. During the time I was reading the interviews, I asked for a friend to model for some photos for me to have as reference, since I only had a model here and I wanted more diversity. The photos that she sent were horrible and unusable. But because of the contact with the Bacon interviews, I was watchful to the question of the error, and I used this aspect on my favour, bringing the disaster of those references to the surface. From this, I made a call for who wanted to participate on my work, this way I would not have control even in the embryonic period of the work.

Interviewer: What do the women who posed for you think of the exposition of their bodies? Is this a relation of a fetish of yours and a narcissism of them?

Rafael: To be honest, I do not know. I prefer not to look after this kind of approval, with the reason that I am afraid that this may intervene in my work, that I start making something to please somebody, so I do not ask. Yes, it is a voywer/exibicionist relation. One of the aspect that interests me very much, to be honest, is the model that undresses and shows herself to the artist.

Interviewer: Is it simple to obtain models and people willing to participate?

Rafael: No. The opposite. It is a hard time. The people who participated had been those who knew me very well and know that the only thing that I take seriously in my life is my work. And even so I had to insist. After all, it involves nudity and sending of photos. I imposed myself the limit of not to insist, but I ended up doing it, otherwise I would not have people to participate. But even this difficulty reflects in an interesting way to my work, and I could relate this in the concept.

Interviewer: You said that the difficulty influenced you work in an interesting way. I imagine that, for being difficult, you end up using more of the models. There are few people who participate, this way when they appear you have to use the most of them. How does this influence in a positive way?

Rafael: The scarcity of models is not as much that this end up destroying the work. It only forces it to become slower. And it puts me in a situation that I do not appreciate to be, asking for and convincing that I am reliable. What influences in a positive way is the denying. Why do we have so many problems with the nudity? I had some very interesting episodes in relation with the female nudity that made me to re-think some things. This week I posed to a colleague, and another colleague shot the photos. I will be naked in Amsterdam in billboards. This did not bother me. When other colleagues heard about this, some came to ask me to pose and I accepted again. I asked the girl whom I posed to if she could pose for me. She refused.

Interviewer: And why do you think that she refused?

Rafael: In my BA degree, I was working as an assistant in a drawing class and we had an artist visiting the course. She made an experiment with the students, where it would be printed parts of our bodies with paint on fabric. Each student would contribute with a part. There were a few men, 2 or 3. In the moment to make the chest of these printed creatures, the girls looked at each other and nobody took a step ahead. I took off the shirt saying: “I am saving you all”. In the end, we had 3 printed bodies, with the visible mark that they did not have gender. In the debate after the experiences, the women complained that they felt invaded in an inverse way. They wanted to participate, but they felt impelled not to do it. They had described this as a rape in reverse. And apparently my simple words hurt them deeply.

Interviewer: The recent work is strongly rooted in the traditional, tonal form of image making. To that end your work could have been made any time in the last three hundred years. The concern with super fine detail is not a modern position. Is this a deliberate move on your part?

Rafael: For sure this is not a modern painting attitude, but I like to think that it is a contemporary attitude. I think about the contemporary art as a movement without unit and this serves me well. I work the painting as I am doing now because this is connected to the concept I want, it does not attract me to have a painting for the simple ability to paint. For me, this characteristic in the art comes in waves that alternate, reason/emotion, figurative/abstract, etc, etc, and I attempt to see a little further looking for the new wave.

Interviewer: Does technique survive without talent? And talent without technique?

Rafael: For fine arts I think that the technique without talent results in an empty work, a mere image that pleases the eyes, however without depth. The talent can be revealed without technique. As I said, it is a question of conscience and observation. There is always a way or another to demonstrate a point. This is something that I find interesting in artists with limited resources, mainly the Cubans. Not that they do not have technique, but the lack of abundant material stimulate them to search alternatives and this enriches the work conceptually. Artists as Luis Gomez and Kcho, to me, are exceptional.

Interviewer: Is it possible to theorize the art? What is the importance of learning a technique to you? Without the learning of this do you believe that your art would have reached this current stage of evolution?

Rafael: I think that it is possible to theorizer part of the art, but the sensitive part will differ from one to another. In my works I think that I have control of half of what I am doing, leaving the another half to my emotional side, intuition and accident. The technique to me represents a great importance in the work, but in spite of everything it is not essential. I believe that I could reach the same result manifesting an idea with simpler mediums, however I have great pleasure with the manual work in artistic production, being those painting, sculpture, engraving, installation or any another, even so lately I am more related with painting and photography, this indirectly, then any another medium.

Interviewer: Is there an intention, motivation or message, behind of each work, or the idea is simply to reproduce a scene?

Rafael: It does exist. The idea to make an image for the hell of it does not attract me at all. I prefer to go read a book.

Interviewer: The canvasses were created freely. About the subject, was it opened or proposed?

Rafael: No theme was proposed. This would limit the creation and would create only a simple response to the stimulation, with the risk of not bringing something that is in the deep of the artist.

Interviewer: What is the biggest difficulty in the moment to initiate a new work, or there is no difficulty at all?

Rafael: This depends. The work sometimes emerges from my necessity to communicate or to express something. Other times appears from an accident that evolves until it gets transformed into something. Other times I have to force myself to make something in order to not to fall in a steadiness that occurs from time to time, like a production crisis.

Interviewer: What was your initial project for the development of these artworks?

Rafael: The project consisted in the continuation of the research of the erotic, that was narrowed during the first modules and had recently some addends due to a happy coincidence. According to my recent contact with the series of interviews of Francis Bacon to David Sylvester, I started to be interested on the accident in the work of art then it happens that episode where I asked the girl for a picture modelling for me I told you about. Actually, this was always an interest since I worked with lithography, because the lack of full domain over the stone certainly would cause an “accident” in the moment of the impression, either in the darkening of the image, deletion, re-appearance of a previously recorded image in the matrix, among others. I got interested on the relation between the thoughts of Bacon and Picasso, where the main interest is the process and that the work never would be concluded, since this would mean literally its destruction. The contact with David Sylvester’s book has awakened my attention regarding the accidents and the process. I did not wanted to get involved with the over consumed cliché of this process in the painting, but yes, to react to this accident. This way, I could create this accident in the initial stage of the work’s development, and I wouldn’t have any control on the matrix. Being this way, I made a request for interested people, but without previous artistic experience, in participating in the project. The idea was that these people send photos and/or provocations on my order, only respecting some small rules so I let them free to make something that I would not expect - the accident - and, this from matrix. I would make a reading in my way, replying to what is usable in this accident. I was expecting with this to have the experimentation and the lack of control since the gestation of the work. But of course, as you can see, I changed a lot of this idea during the development of the work. Changes I think are really fine and acceptable, as the work grew more solid.

Interviewer: Is there any special reason for you to paint only beautiful women, or even better, stereotyped women?

Rafael: I think that this choice has several facets. I believe that the first point is in the prejudice of the person who notices this aspect, since I had not made this as something intentional in the first works. The spectator notices this because he is the one who has this concept of classification in his mind. Of course that, as the author I have to be aware of this reading and to have caution so that the work does not take an undesired direction. Anyway, it is a dead end question. If I have made paintings diversifying the type of body of the models, I would be joining in this game of judgement myself, since that creating a place in the sun for all it would be a way to pretend that this idealization does not exist, and nothing better to make something to become real than denying this something. Another aspect of this is the beauty concept. I am not painting beautiful women, I am painting pretty women. The beauty is the classic aesthetic concept, while the pretty one is the ephemeral fashion. I am painting the passenger fashion. After all it is in this society where we are inserted and that it imposes its will gradually. The women in paintings are considered beautiful within the occidental society, mainly the American one. In African tribes or communities in Asia this concept can be different. And in all my reflective works I do not represented only other people's questions, I criticise what I see and mainly, what I see myself being exposed to and dominated by. As you see, almost all the women that I paint are ex-girlfriends that kindly participate on the process. Thus you can conclude that I also am dominated by this process of the media to create a standard of untouchable beauty.

Interviewer: And why the absence of colour in this phase of your work?

Rafael: The work has colour. The black and the white and the tonalities in between these two colours.

Interviewer: Ok, then why the black and white?

Rafael: I have quite a few answers to this question. As you see, I try to construct my work in a way that it has within itself several layers of signification, this way the audience can reach different levels, more complex or perhaps less, depending on the degree of knowledge or affection with the work. The simplest answer for this is that I simply don’t see any necessity in using other colours then black and white in the work, the image works without this. In a deeper level, the colours black and white have a very strong meaning. The white is a colour considered full, because it is formed by all the other colours simultaneously. But you can also have it as an empty colour, that reflects all the received colours and does not absorb any. Now, the black is the opposite, it is considered by many an empty colour, it is the pigment’s absence, the colour that is not colour, but instead of reflecting the colours, it absorbs, getting filled with them. I believe that this contributes in a positive and very fulfilling way for the concept of the work. Full and empty colours at the same time, depending on the perspective that it is seen. I like to see in my work both the white and the black colour as full colours. Another reason to choose these colours is a contraposition with the style adopted by the famous week of modern art of 1922, that marked the modern period of the Brazilian art, characterised by tropical colours showing all of the country’s sensuality. However I believe that Brazil is not colourful country anymore, and I have several issues with the Brazilian art. As the portraits of Indians and Negroes, of workers in a factory or of the sensuality and the Brazilian tropical climate, I expose my vision of this variety that could not censure me when I use the values from the black to gray and to the white to configurate my work. Because it is my immediate version of the variety and individuality.

Interviewer: The figure in her back has an aspect a little bit ambiguous, indicating a certain androgenity. Was this something intentional?

Rafael: No. And although this affirmation may deviate the attention of the initial concept of the work, it does not bother me. Some of the psychology concepts that I study helped me a lot with the work. I am interested on the organic, on the capacity of the human being to distinguish a thing from another, a person from the other, only for small details. All so similar, with the same characteristics, however so different. And mainly the idea of the human being’s solitude. The human being is naturally anguished because he is alone in the world. And this pain starts when the child is about 4th months old, when, through the recognition of the face features, he realises that he and his mother are not the same person and that the mother gets absent, leaving the child alone. Your question only endorses this concept. From the moment that you do not have a face, the distinction capacity diminishes. This concept deeply fascinates me.

Interviewer: Why do you use this point of view in your paintings, since in the majority of the classic nudes the vision of the spectator is from a little higher position, in fact, technique this also used in pornography?

Rafael: I use this artifice in way to make one of the readings of the work more easily to be understood. Also I worked with a visual distortion to compensate the presentation of the canvasses, that I want to be about 1,20m of the ground. The classic pictures and the pornography use this aspect in a subtle way even, in some cases, demonstrating the superiority of the man on the woman, where he dominates and overpower her. I wanted to make something graphical to show that the reality can be a little different of the one that the industry shows.

Interviewer: How is your process of work, do you sketch the ideas before and then reproduce them later on a large scale?

Rafael: I try not to do this, although some times this is something impossible to avoid. I don’t like this idea of reproducing a work on large scale. If I find that the concept of the work is all in the sketch, I do not see any reason for reproducing it on a large scale. After all, it would be only one reproduction of something that already works. When I have an idea for a work, I like to take some photographs to use as a reference and to start the work directly on the canvas. It helps me to think. When something goes wrong, I simply cover and remake it. It is a way to see if the image works or not in the practical context. I make some sketches after the process is initiated (see appendix), as a form of support to the thinking in terms of image, and not as a starting point. It is a slightly insane process that demands too much time, but I do not see myself making it in another way.

Interviewer: Seeing your work it is very difficult to notice this experimentation, since the painting is well defined and apparently it does not tell all this story of experimentation.

Rafael: This enters in the question of the several layers of understanding of the work that I commented previously. The experimentation is there although it is not so obvious. One experienced eye knows to recognize it without any difficulty, what perhaps a layperson may not notice. But maybe this same amateur eye is not interested in this aspect and perhaps for him is more interesting not to perceive this.

Interviewer: Apparently, you control your paint completely leaving nothing to chance. Your technique mimics form but does not make an equivalence for it in the way Velázquez, Cezanne or even Jenny Saville do. The images may therefore become flat - like a photograph and cold blooded. Is this deliberate?

Rafael: This was something that was modified on the original idea. But I ended up doing the work consciously about this. I finished for opting in not deviating the attention from the subject to the way I use the brush, thus I did not leave this aspect so obvious. That is, the audience that can get distract with this will not notice, while trained audience will realise that the three canvasses painted until now are very different from each other, in a clamorous way actually, at one second look. I have always been fascinated with the Matisse backgrounds and even made some experiences like him some time ago. I like the way that the absence of a space removes the perspective of the figure. It is as a contraposition the boxes that Bacon used in his figures. I am trying to make the figure to emerge of an emptiness without perspective, an allegory for the depth in something flat, while I have the suit, that is three-dimensional, but empty. That is, certain things are not what they seem to be: we can have depth in the plan and flatness in the tri-dimensionality. I am a great appreciator of the three mentioned artists, however I see them as painters. Mainly Velázquez and Cézanne. I think that work of Jenny Saville is fantastic and I can see some relation between her works and mine pretty clearly, with the difference of my coldness. In the way as I see, if they were not the subjects, Jenny could make the Christmas illustrations for the Coke Company. I have a fall for photography and I end up relating too much of my work with photos, mainly the black and white. I like the mystery of the photography, the enigma. Cartier-Bresson is a genius. I would give a finger to have half of his ability.

Interviewer: Don’t you think that the works have a very strong characteristic of design for looking to be too safe and not to have elements of experimentation as dribbling or random brush strokes?

Rafael: Regarding the characteristic of design, although I had already heard some critics about the erroneous idea that I have the insight and execute it, not being more than “just an illustration”, I believe that this is not so simple. This process is not a simple and illustrative one. It is actually a reflective process, where I construct an image layer over layer, in a debate between me and the painting. Painting to me is thinking. It is reflection. For me it doesn’t matter if I do not find the tops to give a brush stroke and see the paint to run randomly. I have seen colleagues playing with lots of canvasses, making one mass production, while I am focused on the same subject for much more time, layer on top of layer, on top of layer… although I do like a lot of works that have these characteristics, such as dribbling, I perhaps do not use these for finding them, in a way, obvious. I made some experiments in the area, and although I have liked, I do not see myself in the work. I make my experimentations in my own way. They do not need to be obvious. A process of experimentation that I use is with the preparation of the canvas, using unusual and inconstant substances. The painting tells a story, in such way that this preparation influences all the layers of paint that are over it. I am always having different results and it is interesting to explore this and to answer in the work. Everything very subtle, as a light difference of tone, cracks or textures. Sometimes the canvas gets unusable and has to be discarded. Also in the varnishing, I apply some different products to see how it will affect the colours in the moment of application and with some time. I think that this comes from my experience when I worked as lithography master printer. All the process had to be measured and to be followed accurately, exactly to not exist surprises in the final image, since is a very unstable technique and I printed for other artists in such way that it could not have accidents or modifications in the original image. I have freedom myself from this this way.

Interviewer: To pass messages, impressions, when you paint is there an intention, do you worry about passing a concept, about people to understand what you wanted to say?

Rafael: Yes. The work without audience is nothing. It is as to have a film presented for empty chairs. However, although I worry about the audience, I do not intend that they understand accurately what is happening, even because as I already said, I myself do not control the entire work. I like to give a direction to the spectator, but also I want that he gets his own conclusions and relates what he is seeing to himself, thus the work has a different reading from person to person, what I find that is the high point of art. If I wanted to pass a consolidated and objective idea I would opt to writing a scientific article.

Interviewer: Art has that to have meaning?

Rafael: For me, yes. Otherwise it is only an empty shell, something that you use to match the sofa, but does not represent or does not make you feel anything. Art is aesthetic, and the aesthetic word itself comes from the Greek word estesis, that is to feel.

Interviewer: How does it work for you, the search of your own language, are you in a search, have you ever thought about this?

Rafael: Indeed. In fact, I have already thought a lot about it and I’m still thinking. As it can be seen in the trajectory of my works, I already tried several characteristic techniques of some artistic movements. I had much influence of the pop art of Roy Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol, and although I like very much the images for them worked I did not find that I had an identity within these experimentations precisely for being a very characteristic style. This can lead to an interpretation of copy. I tried other styles such as surrealism but the same thing always happened. It was when I found a group of artists having the same difficulty as me, to find a personal style, and from there we got together and form a group called "Metamorphos" where the style was not to have a style, and yes to develop the idea and from there to develop a style that suits the idea better, this way, different idea, different style. I also tried, and I think that I had success in this, to develop a new source inside of the Brazilian art, the Saprophagy, positioned against the Brazilian Anthropophagy and the Verde-Amarelismo (“Green-Yellowism”), movements of great importance in the Brazilian art. The saprophagy has a very strong concept and it is nothing more that the revisited, recontextualized and contemporanised Anthropophagy. In fact, one of the characteristics of this movement is the utilization of the colours black and white. But in terms of technique, what I am currently doing is not to have any reference of other artists in the atelier. In this way I think that the work comes more out off my hand and I can see a technique linearity, although progressive, in my work.

Interviewer: Apart from the canvasses, I noticed some photographs (photos link and carol) and other different materials, in which of them you feel more comfortable to work? Is there a way to choose one?

Rafael: I can feel more confident in one technique than another for having more experience in some determined areas, but I do not feel myself limited in my capacities to make something different. I have a very strong connection with drawing, that end up being applied in printmaking and painting, but I also feel myself very comfortable and with more freedom working with installation and creating objects. Here in the master’s degree I have explored more the painting for a question of practicity and of bureaucracy. Painting I do not depend on anyone and anything besides my canvasses, paints and brushes.

Interviewer: One of your self-portraits also brings the nude, in a delicate form, undressed exceeding canvases, is this the way as you see yourself facing your work?

Rafael: Yes. Even in my self-portraits that only shows my face, my neck is naked. I always expose myself in my artworks, my interior at least, and to be honest when I am in my vernissages I feel as the audience is looking at and analysing me when they get in contact with the work.

Interviewer: Some of your canvasses remind me of Bukowski. You consider the writer as part of your influences?

Rafael: I believe that he is one of my greater indirect influences. I have no recent work that was directly based on the writer, however he is present in parts of my character and opinion, as during my period of formation I had an extensive and intense contact with the literature of Bukowski. When I loaned my books of him to some of my friends, after they finish the book they used to say that they seemed to be reading about me. They called me little Bukowski.

Interviewer: Speaking of influences, who are the ghosts that inhabit your work? Can you not to feel limited, in the sense of a limit be imposed on you, facing this kind of question?

Rafael: This new body of work is replete of influences, however not as direct and obvious as in the previous works. I have made this work in a more personal way, with all the weight and references that I accumulated during my life, all in a melting pot. It is possible to find a little of each element that I got in contact throughout the years. I think that because of this I have been happy with the results of this work, it seems more me. It came from inside, in an irrational way. The question does not limit, but it does not have a satisfactory reply. I can name some artists who had influenced me in an obvious way and you would be satisfied with the answer, but I fear that this would limit the work’s interpretation, as for example that I made this in accordance with that, and that in accordance with that another one. It is not so simple, nor so superficial. In between all the references, I find that the most evident are the musical ones. I did not want to relate myself with visual arts in order to not to be associated with determined artist or determined style. Basing myself on the musical aspect I have more freedom and I do not end up resembling anybody in a direct way. I have researched Cage and Stockhausen to understand some musical concepts.

Interviewer: And why do the images of women predominate?

Rafael: For several reasons. The woman withholds the sexual power. The man does not have a sexual image, in spite of all. The man is a consumer in this game, he does not have the power of choice. The masculine presence in my works is myself. I do not see necessity to add more masculine elements beyond my look to it unless this is absolutely necessary. After all, all the critics that I make, I only make because I see elements of myself exactly in what I want to criticise.

Interviewer: You talk about criticising the form as the sex is treated, but I can see in another way. I do not see a heavy criticism, nor exaggerate, because I am an admirer of erotic art. Do you think that for the people who also think like this your art does not have impact?

Rafael: It has in one other way. Each body of work that I produce has a different concept, sometimes inverse. However the medium that I use can take the audience of the work to face as all the same. Some of my works developed from pretty idiotic things, but they made me think a lot. One of these things, - I am a tale teller. I love allegories - was a friend looking at the work "The Pisser" of Picasso. He saw it and made a joke: “I don’t appreciate the erotic work of Picasso. You can’t even masturbate to it.” The story is idiotic, but this made me think. For sure the audience we have to pornography is way larger than the audience we have to art.

Interviewer: The person who understands of art can not “understand of sex” and then not to get your idea, as well as the person that likes sex may not understand of art and your work also does not go to reach its objective. That is, is necessary to understand of art and sex at the same time to understand your works?

Rafael: No, absolutely not. I have as one of my objectives to aggregate the most audience possible, from the general public to the specific one. I don’t like to make something hermetic, for those that are from some specific group to understand only. I hate fine art works from fine artists to fine artists. But I also cannot control what the audience sees or understands of the work. And I don’t even want to. Even though because, I myself end having control of only 50% in the conception of the work and when it goes on public this initial control to it falls for to half, since the work depends on the interaction. Another aspect is that my work is more a form to think and a questioning than an illustrated idea. So is not as bidimensional as it seems. I want to share my point of view with the audience and to make them to question themselves.

Interviewer: Which audience are we talking about? How do relate yourself with the industry of the art? After all, art still generates profit and capital, this of course, inside of the higher social circles.

Rafael: As I have the pretension to reach the maximum of audience that can be reached, mainly speaking in social classes. It does not seem to exist one specific audience with real interest for fine arts nowadays, at least in my reality. The poor classes do not have time to this and the rich classes look at art in an elitist way. In my opinion, we have to re-educate the audience. This interview for example, I had about 8% of reply. I offered a chance for the people to question my work and to know a little more of it, and this was not seductive, not even for people next to me, as tutors and colleagues of profession. I am not certain if I believe in the industry of art anymore. I want to look for something alternative. This new series for example could be perfectly produced in billboards. I think that it would cause curiosity in the audience. You are driving and see these images, without any explanation. Of course you will think "what the hell is this?". I do not have interest in only reaching the elite who makes art. For example, during the Brazilian dictatorship (1964-1989) we had an enormous censorship, so for the artists to express themselves they tried all the forms of masking works and lyrics in way to deceive the censors. Nowadays everyone thinks that they made a good job doing that, but the fact is that the censors were not silly, they knew what it was really written in there, but this would not make the slightest difference since the audience that would understand the messages would be the educated audience, the same that did not need those messages because they already knew what was happening. So what is the use?

Interviewer: How do you deal with an audience that is disgusted by pornography -some woman would find the imagery degrading. Is it important for woman to like or dislike you work?

Rafael: Truth to be said, my work is in a way feminist, although I not to leave this very clearly. But I do not have interest that the women like or dislike it, I have interest that they understand it and position themselves, positive or negatively.

Interviewer: Then you are not worried about the image that the people can have of you? Something as to find you perverted by abusing the sex?

Rafael: It does not worry me. In fact, I find it amusing, even so this having caused me personal problems. Perhaps not even this is bad. Perhaps is a good filter for who wants to come close to me. But exactly the same people who in my front of me make jokes and find this aspect of me amusing, get to make some prejudice commentaries about my artworks. Even with some tutors I had to hear undesirable things. This shows that I still have much work to do. Anyway, I consider my work pretty light comparing to some other artists. There are some radical people out there.

Interviewer: That is, to you the people whom better deal with sex are more welcome than the others?

Rafael: Personally, you say? Or as audience?

Interviewer: Personally. With the audience it is impossible to distinguish or to level, I believe.

Rafael: I like of people well resolved. I had a colleague in college that I knew he was gay and maybe he was not too sure about that. When he find himself and “came out of the closet” we became good friends. I really enjoy telling stories to illustrate my ideas. I am the man of the allegories.

Interviewer: It is common, in Brazil, to think that the Europeans are more evolved, even intellectually. But I think that perhaps they are more conservatives than we are, and that the relation with the art is bigger. But with the sex it isn’t.

Rafael: Here there is a lot of prejudice and racism. They are a society very ruled, stricted. And I think that there is a cult to the drinking exactly to overflow this control. Clearly that this in terms of England. In the Latin countries that I visited it was very different. Interesting as the culture changes, and as the things that we think to be in some way are not. But anyway, I don’t like generalisations.

Interviewer: It is common to people to speak of Europe as if they were better. Sometimes they say this because of a public opinion already consolidate. They don’t really think this but they comment it. Therefore good part of the people look for study and work in European countries.

Rafael: You have to remember that people are people in any place of the world. Independent of race, creed or sexual option. Of course it is not because of this that you can’t take a position.

Interviewer: It is difficult. Pretty difficult. But it is not impossible. What I said is what I see of a culture that was taught. It is common to the Brazilian to think that what comes from the others is better.

Rafael: Indeed. The grass of the neighbour is always greener.

Interviewer: Exactly.

Rafael: I understand. This is something that I have. I appreciate movement. I enjoy fluidity. Here I feel homesickness of Brazil. When I was there, I wanted to come here. It is the perpetual dissatisfaction of the human being, but this makes us to evolve, to try.

Interviewer: The fact of the girls not to have contributed in the work that needed the parts of the body, doesn’t it go beyond? Something that it is connected to a feminine emancipation and such. It is a much more ample study. Women have this problem with sex. It is different. What do you think?

Rafael: Does not go beyond what? Women want the release, the freedom, but they cautiously take care of their chains.

Interviewer: The fact of them not to contribute for feeling ashamed. It goes beyond finding that only embarrassment or a rape. It is not something that depends on them.

Rafael: Why do you believe that women have this problem with sex? I believe that it depends on them certainly. They thought that someone in there would judge them. Perhaps they were wrong.

Interviewer: Are you interpreting a character for the interview?

Rafael: No. I am naturally serious. Except when I am not.

Interviewer: Anyway, I am saying that this is something that comes from a long time ago. It did not depend on them to have a written history of negation to the body and such. But, I do find that they had to change this.

Rafael: Yes. They did think that too. It was for this same reason that they got upset. Some even cried for not having been able to make it.

Interviewer: And the girl who asked for your help and did not want to help you in the same way. Apparently she is open-minded about the sex, but anyway she did not want to do it.

Rafael: I do not think that she is open-minded about sex.

Interviewer: Apparently she is.

Rafael: Curiously she only obtained female models. Being this way the problem may not be to undress, but to undress for the opposing sex. This still is very connected to the sexual intercourse. The human being got dressed and never again was able to undress. I am not a naturalist, and frankly I am not interested on it, but I find that it must have a balance. I did not understand why you think that apparently she’s open-minded about it.

Interviewer: She wanted to work with the nude. In the same way as you do. And you are open-minded, right? That is, comparing you can think that she also would be. But no.

Rafael: Wrong. I am not that open-minded about this. As I already said, I criticise what I see that I have a little in myself. I would not go walking around naked. I think that she wanted to work with the nude, because we do not have much of a choice when working with figurative subjects. It is a choice of 33%. Or you do landscape, or still-life, or the body. Of course you can open several branches inside each category and combine them, but anyway.

Interviewer: It is interesting. You just said that the human being got dressed and can’t get undressed anymore, as a critic, and you also say that would not walk around naked, as saying that this would be to exaggerate.

Rafael: Yes. We have to have the half term. I am a human being too. I am part of what I criticise. I am not a hypocrite.

Interviewer: Bingo. I believe that there is an objective in the art, regardless how is it, to who, and independent of the form. For you is there a moment where your art would deplete? Something as to lose the meaning?

Rafael: Not really. What happens is that I am replete of ideas. Really. And what happens in the truth is the opposite. I have more ideas than my body and my time allow me to execute. What sometimes leads me to a lack of focus. I wasn’t able to make extensive series of works. I make some and I find that the idea is already consistent and start making another one. I have faced this as an error, but lately I am trying to use this characteristic of mine in my favour. Clearly that all artists at some point faces what we call crisis of the creation. Where everything gets stuck. But later it goes away. I have already set some traps for me when this occurred. One time I wasn’t able to produce for a long time and this was depressing me. I called a gallery where I was known and set up an exhibition for after the following day. I had less than 24 hours to produce the entire body of work for the exhibition. In moments like that the desperation unblocks any crisis of creation that you can have. Today these works are the ones that I like the most, the most sincere.

Interviewer: I think that everything made this way ends up better. How about the homosexual relation, does not interest you to show?

Rafael: I have already showed a female homosexual relation, but I understood the question. In the series Saprophagy I represented an explicit scene of homosexual sex mixed with necrophilia. That is, one man had sex with a corpse. After this I did not make anything like this anymore. And I hadn’t thought about this until some months ago when I watched the film Shortbus, that I found magnificent. It is a film that contains all scenes you can imagine, but it is not in any way pornographic or sexually exciting. It is simply a well constructed and innovative film in the aspect that includes the sexuality of the people in the film as it was not made in cinema yet. And it has many scenes of male gay sex. I realise with this film that I am not an erotic artist. I am a heterosexual erotic artist. I need to get myself involved with the work, and also to feel pleasure with the image. One remembers that the woman is the one who is the target of the game.

Interviewer: You commented about the film Shortbus. Are there some more recent exhibitions that you saw that had influenced you in some way, or even films or books?

Rafael: The book that most influenced the work directly is the one with the interviews of Francis Bacon, which I already mentioned. I have recently been in Spain and the Reina Sofia museum touched me very deeply, mainly when I saw the Guernica in front of me, with all the sketches of preparation and photographs of the changes of the work. Many things that had apparently left as accident, you see in the photographs of the process how they had been moved, and in the sketches, as a drawing that seems to be simple and gestual, actually was studied and developed for years before composing the canvas. This without mention the use of black and white and grays only. I found it splendid. You can only understand the Guernica if you see it live. It is something that causes an impression. In the museum you cannot get very close to the canvas, must be about 4 metres far or more. I did not resist and I start looking really close to the work, with the sensor whistling and some security guards trying to take me out of there. The Giger museum was another one. It is mounted in a way that you stay in the middle of those enormous panels, monstrous. It is as to visit hell. More recently, I watched to the film of Lars von to Trier again, Dogville. All the film is outstanding, the relations between the characters, the masks, and how people reveal themselves. Even the wisest characters, are also the most hypocritical, who more early reveal themselves as corrupts. But what I can also and perhaps more strongly relate to my work is the absence of an obvious background, differently from any another film. In Dogville there is no landscape or houses, the scenery is as if the movie was a filmed in a theatre, with the marks in the ground, as an architectural plant. Simply because there is no necessity of anything more elaborated, and after a while you forget this absence and focus in the characters, and the same thing happens in my work. You are given what you need to have.

Interviewer: Is there some research method that you follow? Some technique to get information together? Some technique for you to analyse theoretically this collected information?

Rafael: Nothing too much organised. I have an idea and start to research the history of the key elements. From there some references appear and I start to research the references of the references, and from then on until this gets diluted and I don’t to feel that it relates to the work anymore. At this point I stop and start to re-read and to analyze all the information that I already have. It happens in a very natural way. After all, I always liked research and analysis and both of them had been part of my life since always.

Interviewer: It is impossible not to relate the artworks with chess, since you have figures resembling pieces and backgrounds resembling boards. How did you get to this result?

Rafael: One of the initial points of the work was a photograph of Duchamp playing chess with a naked woman in one exhibition opening. I was always very intrigued with this action. I made one species of re-reading of the naked model where she was playing against nobody, where I left the empty space in the image (see appendix). I related this with absence, the game of the artist with the audience. I am interested in the aspect of the game. However, I left this image aside and I started to work in the images that I had been developed from this. When I returned to look at this initial image it did not satisfy me anymore, then I retook the research and I realised why this painting was a key for the others. Also I started to observe all the unconscious aspects that were in the work, things that I was joining and finished placing in the image without noticing. And I started to discover many things that I wasn’t aware or too watchful about the game and the work was getting modified with each new knowledge that I was acquiring. It was if adjusting. Duchamp used to say that he was a player of chess in the world of the art, and I always found that he could not have defined himself better. All of his artworks are thought, each movement, each result, all the strategy and science of the player. I was even more surprised when I find out about the game between Duchamp and John Cage. From this moment I felt my work taking body and I started to answer to this.

Interviewer: What aspects of the game you were interested in, for example?

Rafael: Several. One for example is the difference between strategy and tactic. The chess strategy consists of defining and reaching objectives of long period during a game, for example where to locate different pieces, while the tactic concentrates in immediate manoeuvres in the board. These two parts of the chess thinking cannot be completely separate, since the strategic objectives are reached mainly by means of tactics, while the reason of being of the tactics is based on a previous strategy of game. This is really similar to the artistic process. Another one is that, although the objective of the game is to defeat/to defend the king, the most powerful piece is the queen. Even in the point counting of the pieces, the queen worths more than the king. One of the interesting points of the relation was the change of the initial project to the current project. The chess being a game of strategy and tactics, does not involve the element luck, that is, creativity exists, but luck, the accident, the unthought does not. The chess has always been represented and connected to art and also to sophistication. An example is the opera Carmina Burana, whose one of the songs starts with the names of the chess parts: Roch, pedites, regina, etc. The chess was also used as combat metaphor, as symbol of the supremacy of the logic, or still, in the spirit of the mediaeval moralists, as an allegory of the social life. Important artworks, where the chess plays a main role, since Alice Through the Looking-Glass, of Lewis Carroll, to The Royal Game, of Stefan Zweig, or The Defence, of Vladimir Nabokov. This without mentioning the Seventh Seal, of Ingmar Bergman. The subject of chess served frequently as base of sermons on morality. An example is Liber de Moribus Hominum et Officiis Nobilium Sive Super Ludo Scacchorum. The different pieces of chess served as metaphors for different social classes and the human duties had been compared with the rules of the game or the visual properties of the pieces. Also it has a series of psychological studies about the chess. One another thing that I find curious was the fact that the championships are divided between female and male, something that would not have necessity, since chess does not depend on physical attributes to be played. I was also surprised when during my researches I saw drawings of the game being represented flat, when the perspective not yet had been developed, something similar to my project. Since the beginning I wanted to discard the perspective, the gravity.

Interviewer: Then the canvasses are about chess?

Rafael: Absolutely not. They have some relation with chess, since the game serves as a support, but that’s all. I more am interested in showing the human relation; the relation between the men and the women; to work the body language; the subtlety of a look; the false impressions of the body that dares but closes itself, while another body is closed however it has an unclasped sex; the unintelligible gesture that demonstrates an emotion, something transmitted without words; the rhythm and the relation with the characteristic of abstraction of the music. The chess is only one of the aspects, one of the layers of reading. Perhaps the minor of them. Anyway, I intend to make 32 canvasses to this project.

Interviewer: Some another relation with the game?

Rafael: The title of the work refers to a chess problem created by Duchamp. These problems have to have one aesthetic appeal and certain instructions to be developed. I intend in the future, when all the canvasses are done, to mount these problems of chess with the works, in a way that to each problem I will have a new disposal and thus a new story told trough the canvasses. As for example the artist Felipe Romano, who uses the game sudoku as a way to produce his canvasses. He plays the game with colours instead of numbers and forms a harmonic composition, always assorted. In his case, the aspect of luck and bad luck of the game is the one being portrayed, the reverse of mine. He has an interesting work that portrays the impossibility, where he manufactures dices with 6’s in all faces, that although is the biggest number, they become the game of gammon impossible to be won. Again, false aspects and appearances.

Interviewer: Is that why the three-dimensional work exists, if I can call it that, where you sewed the suit on the canvas? How does it relate with the painted bidimensional canvasses?

Rafael: It is one of the reasons. It is the initial work that was transformed due to a new knowledge, a new reading. The masculine presence that was shown indispensable. Or the masculine absence, if you prefer. It relates in contraposition of the two-dimensionality and tri-dimensionality, of the fullness and the emptiness, the masculine and the feminine, the nude and the dressed, of the false impressions.

Interviewer: Does the suit have any relation with the suit of Joseph Beuys?

Rafael: Not directly. Joseph Beuys is among my top 10 favourite artists, but in the case of this work, I am working a concept very different from his. I do not find that only because I’m using a suit, that is not even made with felt, it would be enough to say that we have something in common. But for sure I would like to have.

Interviewer: The work seems to present a conceptual whole but I am not sure what it is. Can you explain the work as a whole - the connections between the images.

Rafael: They are all related as characters, but also they do work individually. They work in several ways, or as people I knew, or as parts of a game, or as representations of emotions or personalities.

Interviewer: Are you not afraid that the work can be read as feminist?

Rafael: I do not know if I will have this problem, but the canvas with the suit can be seen like this. Perhaps this reading won’t not happen when all displayed together. If the canvas of the suit be shown individually it can have this interpretation, but if a minimum research on my work be made this concept would be discarded quickly.

Interviewer: Do you get involved with the women who you work with? I would like to know what you search with these images, if there is a relation of intimacy as the imagery is very personal as these are girls that you have known. The pornographic element therefore has a confessional feel about it. Is this deliberate?

Rafael: Yes, there was an involvement but not because of the work. I became involved as you get involved with a person you know in a French class, for example. Simply for the contact. It happened of ex-girlfriends be the one to help, since it has that factor confidence that I talked about, so the work got a new direction, more intimate and more confessional, but I also had random people who I asked for and they participated and we did not have any involvement; also people who I asked for and we got involved and also bizarre cases of people that thought that I wanted sex. One girl, when I took her to the studio, seeing all my equipment prepared, asked me: “were you talking seriously?”, I replied affirmatively so she concluded: “I thought that you only wanted to have sex with me”. So, it is obvious that in the end a confessional element happened. I could know or already I knew who I am painting intimately, and the painting also starts to be a portrait, as much of the person as of the relation. It is one of the layers.

Interviewer: I think that sex leads to involvement. It is not a question of concept but it is natural, of the human being. The difference is to be a temporary involvement or not.

Rafael: Yes and no. It can be or cannot. I believe that the question is a little more complex than that. I do not think that it has an involvement in every relation. You can have a suing house where some man puts his penis in a hole in the wall and another person on the other side do a fellation, without knowing who the penis’ owner is. What kind of relation this would be?

Interviewer: It is involvement. You can classify it in several ways, a fast involvement, maybe. You do not need to know the person. The same thing as the internet, for example.

Rafael: I think that people have better experiences talking on the internet then having an anonymous fellation. At least in the internet relation you can get more intimate, even with the distance. The internet is something insane. I have already found sites of pornography that one can find absolutely everything you want. Midgets having sex with pregnant goats. War handicaps being sodomised by pirate ships in the sea world watched by Caucasians children with crossed eyes. They can have everything. And this takes in back to the question of the transvestites, the question of the idiosyncrasy, which is one of my previews works. In the streets of the transvestites close to my house the traffic at Friday night was intense, everything jammed, so some friends and I start to interview some of the "workers" there, who revealed that the majority of the customers are there to be sodomized and not the inverse. You can see the most luxurious cars there, in the worse zone of the city. Family men, that after the job go to be penetrated for transvestites before giving their children a good night kiss at home. I think the question of transvestism very interesting and intriguing. Generalizing, the individual looking for them has a necessity of anal stimulation, but cannot have with another from the same genre, then he looks for someone that resembles a woman to do the job. Curious. But, going back to the internet, I can’t really remember the statistics, but something like 2/3 of it is pornography. This demonstrates how the sexuality is restrained in our society. I am also interested in the way as the human being is able to be confused with images and sounds, creating a false relation of eroticism. For example, when seeing an image in the internet or the television, the person is seeing a combination of pixels, micropoints with different colours; in a canvas, brush strokes and combinations of colours simulating an image that deceive the mind and confuse the senses, making him having a reply to this combination of colours as to one sexual stimulation, but in the truth there is no one in there, it does not have a body, it does not have a soul. You deceive the eye with colours and the eye deceives the mind. I like photographs with granulation, noise and pixelization because of this. You make obvious the falseness of an image, principally a pornographic one.

Interviewer: Pornography even concerns the law, crime, religion, these matters. A magazine, as the Playboy, for example, can be what? Art? Pornography? Sensual shooting, as it is used to be called?

Rafael: It depends on the audience. But I share your doubt. We have this magazine of very good taste, with excellent professionals. The photographer Bob Wolfenson for me is exceptional and he works for these magazines. However almost all of these magazine’s audience uses it to masturbation. They are photos of good taste that could be in a gallery, but they have the myth of the celebrity. Playboy makes the men fantasy of undressing that girl who presents the sport show or is acting in a film to come true. It is a personal accomplishment of his involvement the magazine or television’s idol.

Interviewer: Perhaps the work in the magazine has found a point that it does not fit in a change. It really turned to an object to masturbation. Good part of the girls photographed is mocked when they say that it is a “sensual shooting” and end up being called vulgar.

Rafael: I believe that the photographers of the magazine have lots of limitations about what to work. What concept can you input in a magazine like that? Maybe some, but nothing too explicit.

Interviewer: Yes, but maybe this happens because it will not be well received, in case they change something. You mentioned Picasso. Is there another influence, more recent?

Rafael: I’m realizing that I won’t escape from this question, so yes, millions of influences. Luis Gomez, Alejandro Gonzales, Kcho, Hélio Oiticica, Nelson Leirner, Luiz Sacilotto, Arthur Bispo do Rosário, the photographers Miguel Rio Branco, Juan Carlos Alom, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Manuel Piña, Arturo Cuenca, Eduardo Muñoz. And lot more. Although I have a thing for the big names. The works in black and white are strongly related to the music of Stockhausen, John Cage and, Smetak. Of course they are not so contemporaries, but anyway. Speaking of big names, I also like very much the work of H.R. Giger. He is had as a “mere illustrator” when in fact he is a very competent fine artist. One of my works is re-reading of one of his images. What happens with Giger, is that the work contains too much information and is very polluted, and I think that we cannot afford this approach anymore, nowadays. We have excess of information in all places where we look at and I think we need a break.

Interviewer: Is there any discussion, event, or something recent that has impacted or influenced the progression of you work?

Rafael: The contact with colleagues always makes me think. I enjoy brainstormings. I even find that this influences me more than a book, probably because my hearing memory is much more powerful that my reading memory. But it is difficult to mention something specific. Each day something small happens that makes me change what I am working in and what I am thinking. I am an ambulant metamorphosis.

Interviewer: Erotic comic books and poetry, can they be considered the same kind of art that you make?

Rafael: I am not certain of this. I was always interested in the works of Milo Manara, Hugo Pratt and Guido Crepax, but I never understood the plots because I used to “read” them in Italian. When I learnt the language I was really disappointed with the content of the works. They seem to me excellent illustrators but the text doesn’t help. It bothers me a little this thing of aggregating text and images, -although I like comics very much-, to put lyrics in music. These are things that have potential alone and it seems a lack of control to mix elements. Now, writers as Marques of Sade know what they are talking about. There is a great and deep concept in these erotic histories that are true social critics and much more. About poetry, I think that is the erotic in the purer form you can have.

Interviewer: And films? It is inevitable to join text and image together.

Rafael: Of course I am taking this point to the extreme so I can illustrate my theory, but answering, not necessarily. Charles Chaplin lost a lot of audience when sound was added to the cinema. A good film can be understood without lines. But again, I am not taking a radical position here. I have already worked adding sounds to my artworks and it works pretty well. But my apprehension is that this tends to restrict much of the audience’s participation in it. The film Lost in Translation, of Sophia Coppola for instance. It is great, it is a visual poem. It does not need anyone talking. In the same way as is amusing to “watch” to certain films with the backs to television.

Interviewer: Yes, but nowadays it is almost impossible to a make film without sounds. Even worst being about sex.

Rafael: Indeed. Things of the industry. But classic pornographic films, as Deep Throat that have some boogie woogie instead of the traditional forced moans, can show you something different.

Interviewer: Regarding to sex, what you would not show in your works in any way?

Rafael: I would not know how to answer this. It did not happen so far.

Interviewer: Isn’t the anything that you find rude? Or exaggerate, that is forced?

Rafael: Probably, but now it does not come anything into my mind. Very probably not related to sex.

Interviewer: Is there other works with different thematic that I haven’t seen?

Rafael: Many things. I have works about musicians and portraits in general, installations and the Saprophagy, that I am very proud of.

Interviewer: To conclude, any final consideration?

Rafael: I don’t think so. Only that some times I ask myself if I don’t just enjoy painting naked ladies.

…