Alice da Silva is a self-taught painter from Honeydew Ridge who was drawn to the medium simply because she loves expressing herself on the canvas. Alice loves to tell stories, and share thoughts and ideas through her art work.
“I don’t have specific subjects that are my go-to when I paint. They are ideas or thoughts, and a lot of them are personal.
That one there on the left,” she gestures to a self-portrait, “has some of the values and attributes that I value and strive for; joy, courage, innocence, loyalty and bounce – bounce as in the ability to bounce back up when life knocks you down.”
The Honeydew Ridge resident started painting ten years ago and said painting to her is like moving meditation. She was influenced by a friend who gifted her with a painting he had made. “I was moving to a new place so he gifted me some paintings he made to brighten up my new space. I also have another friend who is an artist and he bought me paints and some brushes, and I just enjoyed it so much that I kept buying new canvases. Every time I felt moved or inspired, I would think ‘I am going to paint’. It’s my way of storytelling. If I paint it, it can never be forgotten.”
She displays her work at flea or craft markets. She admitted to be nervous about people seeing her work, but she loves the atmosphere at markets and interacting with different people.
“I am not doing this to be commercial. Every painting has a little piece of me.” Alice comes from a musically inclined family and said her family is artistic simply in their way of being. Her mother and niece are also poets. .
Though she doesn’t have just one favourite, she named Salvador Dali and Leonardo da Vinci.
“Dali’s work is different and quirky. Da Vinci’s paintings look so realistic, like photographs. That attention to detail is so remarkable. He drew faces and hands with such detail. I also love Claude Monet with the soft images and the gardens.”
Contact Alice: 083 653 7124
