Alex D. da Silva

My work has always revolved around our relationship to the land, the spaces we inhabit and the ways they are reshaped, whether by human intervention or by nature itself. It is an exploration of memory, a testing of the narratives we construct to make sense of ourselves.

My paintings are dense with symbols, shaped by a restless, anxious imagination. I build them slowly, layering textures and mediums, adding and removing elements, weaving a visual story I continue to tell myself. For me, they extend beyond the present moment, I inhabit each one fully. At the start of a new work, I try to return to that place, not from nostalgia or deliberate design, but because it is where the connections reside, where meaning gathers, and where I still discover my way into painting.

History is inescapable, even when we choose to ignore it. If we refuse to look back, we risk repeating the same failures. Painting is my way of entering into dialogue with that history, and of grounding myself in the only home any of us will ever know.