"Alma comes
from a generation of artists that has chosen, facing a saturated visual world,
the appropriation and recycling of several images from varied sources, for the
last twenty, thirty years. Yet, her inclusion in this group is controversial,
since instead of the usual method of unconditional stealing of references,
historic quotations and the respective recycling giving rise to a scattering of
the meaning, her case has been revealing a restricted idiosyncratic
orientation.
That Alma
wants us to be enraptured by this childhood world seems to be, in the very act,
her aim. Though it clearly shows, at first sight, a good imitation of the compulsory
childish trend to write and paint on inappropriate surfaces, the author’s
vandalism, only apparently innocent, goes obviously even farther.
In this
fluid, transparent and theatrical space, an interaction of mutual influence,
either graphic or plastic, reveals itself – between the background pulsation
(staging reality) and the overlapped drawings ( paradigmatic of the childish
imaginary). From this agitation an expressive strength of a nostalgic,
metaphysic and a kind of lost time atmosphere appears..."
João Viana
"...Al.Ma. rescues the essence of the passage of time, such a return to past times, winks to the romantic memory and of our childhood,.. .but a very anchored content to the present, contemporary and real..."
Santiago Plata
Alvarenga Marques
"I like to play with
images and establish tensions, to focus attention from some icons by opposition
to others. At the present, I frequently
use images like pop stars or very recognized objects in comparison with others
less recognized, like typical, regional or tribal ones.
Sometimes this context
creates a bizarre and an unexpected environment that I intend to catch the
observer and lead him to wonder.
I broach the subject
of playful mood, and use scrawls to demarcate the territory that represents my
imagination”.