Ana was born in Linhares, in the state of Espírito Santo in Brazil. One of ten children, she grew up on her father’s farm, in a time before telephone and electricity and asphalt roads arrived in the region.
“When I was a small girl the wet earth was my canvas, and a sharp stick my brush. I would sketch dresses in the wet sand of the yard where we’d lay out the coffee beans to dry after harvest. And I dreamed of living in a big city.”
At 18 she left home to work in Vitória – the state capital – designing ball gowns for the wealthy clientele of a clothing boutique.
“It was not easy living away from my family, but after three years I had saved enough money to return home and open my own small store making and selling arts and crafts, and hand-painting T-shirts for the tourists in the summer. This was where I first met my husband, and we later moved to the small village of Itaúnas and raised our two children.”
Later the family moved to Rio de Janeiro, where Ana painted alongside some of the greatest Carioca artists in Ateliê BaluArte under the guidance of mestre Luis Badia. Years of painting T-shirts on demand for impatient tourists, with quick-drying fabric paints had taught her to apply and mix pigment quickly and surely, and she would surprise her colleagues with the speed and volume with which she laid down color on her canvases.
It was in Rio that she experimented with different styles, from Impressionism to Pointillism, Fauvism and Modernism, always driven by the desire to express color for its own sake.
“My inspiration has always come from my dreams..”
Ana moved to Houston with her family in 2011, where she opened a studio in the Washington Arts District.
She now lives in Portugal and has a studio gallery in the town of Carvoeiro, in the Algarve region.