Project Statement:
Brazil’s third largest city, Salvador is the provincialL capital, of not just Bahia, but of African Brazil. One cannot avoid the country’s African heritage, from the carnival rhythms, the rituals of candomblé (Brazil’s equivalent of Santeria) and in the martial art ballet of capoeira. Just before dawn, each year during Carnivale, tens of thousands of people, dressed in white, begin to show up at the beach lighting candles, offering prayers to Neptune, and praying for a happy marriage, good health and prosperity. The beach is packed with celebrants dancing, smoking and drinking beer and by noon it is mostly over. This ceremony is repeated in many forms, throughout Bahia, in the small villages and towns of the Reconcavo running concurrent with Carnival.
Artist Bio:
I was born in Montreal, Québec, Canada in 1943 and studied fine art at l’ecole des Beaux Arts in Montreal. I became interested in becoming being a photographer after viewing the work of Robert Frank, Andre Kertez and Henri Cartier Bresson.
For 4 years, I studied with the Canadian photographer John Max and participated in a number of group shows and solo exhibits in Canada before moving to the United States in 1992. I am now based in Santa Fe, NM.
