FLAVIA SOUZA when I was four years old I remember seeing a Van Gogh painting while in my fathers arms. I had an overload sensory experience - it was marvelous, like being in heaven or having an orgasm. Later when I was about 8 I remember writing Picasso a letter after seeing his paintings. i think I told him I wanted to be an artist. My mother never sent the letter and I waited for a reply for a very long time. - I kept having the same experience of beauty, something I couldn't understand with my head but I felt in my whole being as a kind of fulfillment. Then again later at around 13 I copied the picture of a young amazonian indian girl in a hut holding her baby brother and I drew it so well in pencil, all the shadows and the foreign creature were so mysterious - I saw how this magical world could be created with a pencil. Becoming an artist was a natural progression of these experiences and an understanding of the value it had for me. It was like being a quiet magician, a hidden sorceress.