From 8 p.m. today, the public can attend artist Christina Oiticica’s show Paths Gathered in the Época Art Gallery. The artist’s work, which has already appeared in large galleries in Europe and the United States, can now be seen by the people of Goiânia.
Christina’s work is charged with s sensual religiosity. Although at first sight it seems to be composed of elements at discord, she manages to associate hot colors to evocations of the universe of women and to symbols of Christianity without shocking the spectator.
For the artist, a watershed in her style was precisely an event that involved religiosity and devotion. In 1990 Christina traveled the Way of Saint James (the pilgrimage on the road to Santiago de Compostela), following the steps of writer Paulo Coelho, with whom she has been married for 23 years.

The mystical journey enhanced the religiosity and femininity of her work. “Although it is quite a masculine journey - or perhaps precisely because of that - that’s where I discovered how much the feminine universe has always been present in my work and how much religiosity was part of this, in works that portray Our Lady, the Sacred Heart, Joan of Arc ... the pilgrimage made me aware of that”, is how she analyzes it.

From then on, she has tried to bring together spirituality and passion. She tells us how in one of these experiences she pays homage to Joan of Arc using the image of the saint in women of different nationalities and characteristics, such as a Moslem, a Geisha, a slum-dweller. “Many people were shocked, claiming that I had profaned the saint. But that’s not it at all! I believe that divinity is also part of everyone, no matter how they live”, is her justification.

Nowadays Christina Oiticica characterizes her work as “something very much directed towards nature as the great mother of all living beings”. In order to expose these feelings in a more concrete manner, she buried about 40 canvases, objects and sculptures in unusual places, such as under stones, in a dried-up river bed, under water, and simply under the earth.

“I want to observe the action of the four seasons on the paintings with different elements of nature”, she explains. Christina says that she is looking for a place in Goiânia to bury one of her works. Within more or less a year the canvases will be dug up and displayed together. The process will be recorded on video and will also be part of the exhibit.

Living in the Pyrenees region in France, Christina has the opportunity to experience the seasons in a very definite way, and this fascinates her. Since she and Paulo Coelho live in a hotel when they are in the French Alps, Christina does not keep a studio there. The large pictures are painted in the open air, even in the cold season.

She feels that this has had a positive effect because it made her resort to other art forms, such as installations, collage and photography, and to use other instruments, such as the computer.

WORKS CONTAIN EXTRACTS FROM SOME OF HER HUSBAND’S TEXTS

The influence of Paulo Coelho on Christina’s work is felt in the very first instants of observation. Extracts and mystical symbols that recur in his books are transposed to the paintings. According to Christina, spirituality was the first factor that brought them together. “I have always respected intuition and although I was brought up in a Protestant school and have certain prejudices, I have always been very mystical”.

Christina recalls that when they met, Paulo Coelho was a bit scared about mysticism because of some experiences with black magic he had shared with Raul Seixas. “I think I helped him to relive his spirituality without fear, just focusing on good things. That’s when he discovered that his knowledge had matured and he decided to start writing again”.

She made the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage four years after Paulo Coelho. That is when they decided to move to a more spiritualized place. The Pyrenees, close to the Spanish border, is the region where Lourdes is located, the area in which Our Lady is said to have appeared.

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