Artwork Gallery, paintings and drawings

João Gomes da Graça

It is in the Atlantic Ocean, in the west Africa coast where a small portion of sea separates my little world from Senegal/Dakar for approximately 650 kilometres, is where Cabo Verde islands, my little world are situated.

I feel and paint moments, persons of my environment. Conveying in my paintings the mixture of courage and optimism despite the hardships of life due to the scarcity of rain and natural resources. This is how I express my island, people trying to gain their day, women trying to obtain resources to feed their children, men facing the sea, sometimes with luck, and other times not so much. For a people surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the logical way to survive is looking out toward the sea and its vast possibilities such as fishing, seawater desalination, port activities, tourism and much more.

But as life is not only work, in the warm evenings people join in some places, playing music, drinking grog and amusing themselves. So this is my island, a quiet and warm poetic place.