It’s not the paint that moves first — it’s the soul.
In the work of Madalena Bento de Mello, the pictorial gesture is born from a quiet bond
with the forest, a deep listening to the rhythms of nature. Her art doesn’t describe — it
evokes. It doesn’t portray — it reveals. Rather than trying to control the image, she tunes in
to its essential frequency, creating canvases that are both landscape and mirror — of the
world and of herself.
When viewing her paintings, you don’t just see — you feel. Deep greens, sunlit yellows, reds
that seem to expand beyond the frame: her materials come alive in generous strokes of
the palette knife, as if the forest itself had claimed the canvas and decided to paint. Each
color vibrates like a note in an Amazonian symphony, each form seems to grow
organically, like a vine curling around an ancient trunk. The vegetation here isn’t observed
— it’s lived.
Her technique is intuitive and visceral, unbound by schools or formulas. It’s a dialogue
between impulse and awareness. As both artist and psychologist, Madalena dives into her
own inner world to surface with images that, while visual, carry the emotional weight of
lived experience. It’s in this fusion of art and psyche that her painting finds its power: the
forest becomes a source of healing, and art becomes a form of reconnection. When she
paints, Madalena doesn’t represent the Amazon — she merges with it. “The forest and I are
one,” she says. And we feel that truth in every inch of canvas, in every vibrating layer.
If the Amazon were an emotion, for Madalena it would be joy. A primal, ancient joy — not
the kind that smiles, but the kind that radiates. In her hands, it takes shape in thick textures
and richly layered surfaces that seem to breathe. Her art isn’t passive — it’s movement, it’s
energy, it’s a celebration of nature as body and spirit. As if each work declares: “The forest
is alive — and so am I.”
Her gaze, influenced by Monet, goes beyond visual enchantment. Madalena sees light not
just as an external phenomenon, but as something that rises from within. The subtle glow
of impressionist gardens and the wild burst of the tropical forest become allies in her work.
Both speak of presence, of attention, of life in its most complete form. Both reveal
Madalena’s essence.