Characters in Chaos
Porto, Portugal-based artist Patrícia Sousa roots for the underdog. The digital illustrator/comic artist’s graphic portraits and panels not only make it easy to see why, but bring new meaning to the term altogether. Simultaneously influenced by everyday life and worlds within the pages of graphic novels, Sousa’s bold creations are full of enough narrative and chaotic fusions of culture and reality to have any one of us invested in the story of both the artist and subject. Lucky for us, Sousa’s story is just beginning. With a debut graphic novel in the works and future full of opportunity, we’ll be happily watching to see where the artist’s journey takes us.
Part One: Who is Patrícia Sousa?
Question #1: Who are you?
“I am a young portuguese artist and I have been drawing all my life. I’ve studied painting for three years, and multimedia for another two, but I’ve recently dropped out of art college to pursue my artistic journey full-time. I’ve been working on my own graphic novel for two months now, and it’s been a really fun and learning experience. My work mainly focuses on illustration (digital and traditional), comics, painting and animation.”
Question #2: Who are you as an artist?
“I’m a very chaotic and intuitive artist, meaning I see fully fleshed out worlds in my head, vibrant with color and life and I tend to follow my instincts to put them out into a screen or paper. I see my art as a fun experience, like a fun-house two way mirror to my brain as I tend to be very autobiographical even when it’s not that obvious while maintaining a very witty sense of humour. It’s very important to me that my art is as real and raw as it can be, even though I can portray surreal worlds at times, the feelings attached to them always speak louder truths about my life and experiences.”
Question #3: What is something art has taught you?
“Art has taught me that nothing stays the same and it has let me free myself from expectations such as “finding an art style” or “sticking to a medium or genre” by realizing that it’s ok not to know where you’re heading and having fun with experimenting. It has also taught me that no matter where you are in the world, if you’re speaking your truth through your art and having fun and true intentions with what you do, other people will relate to it eventually, no matter how long it takes.”
Question #4: What draws you to your medium?
“Painting used to make me feel very excited because it’s a very tactile and sensory experience. It makes me feel grounded and in the moment every time I smell the paint or get my hands dirty. Sketching and drawing traditionally has also made me feel excited about living in the moment and it’s the only thing in my life that I’ve never stopped getting excited about. The fact you can do it anywhere, even with any pen on a napkin brings me a lot of joy, and confronts me with a very beautiful innocence. Everything digital is super cool because of it’s portability and quickness. I work on an ipad most times and it’s fun to be able to create fully colored and rendered illustrations or animations on a small portable screen.”
Question #5: What kind of journey are you on?
“Through my years as an artist I’ve learned that it’s not a good idea for me to have a plan of what I want to do. My art has changed because we change as human beings; we grow and our art grows with us. We like different things at different points, and keep absorbing references from life and other people and the world. Art is a medium of self discovery. I’ve let myself go and enjoy it’s changes as I try to become better at what I’m doing at the moment no matter what it is.”
Part Two: The Underdog
What is your artistic practice?
“My work searches for the ability to provoke thoughts, reactions and new ideas. It’s influenced mainly by music, cinema and real life experiences seen through a circus like, sometimes surreal filter. All of my work is motivated by the deep desire to succeed against all odds, and it gives a voice to the underdog in all narratives. It tries to expose the ugly, the dirty, the unpopular. It’s honest and raw, and it’s a chaotic mess of unfiltered things about the world and about myself.”
2020, oil on canvas w/ digital finishes
80×60
The recycling of an old unfinished painting turned into part of the painting itself. Using the old painted by an old version of myself, who doesn’t exist anymore. Not totally. A memory of a memory. A reinterpretation of me in the past, remembered once more in an attempt to speculate about my identity and place in the world with the hope of saving the memory of what I once was and the uncertainty of what I am now.
digital
2020
This is a portrait study of my friend Isa made to cope with missing friends over a quarantine period. I really like the mixing of my approach to color with my comic style of illustrating.
2019
chinese ink on paper
This piece was made in an attempt to study and improve my comic inking technique, and it’s very influenced by old comics in black and white even though I still added a flat layer of color to it later
It evolved into a full project later, when I decided to program a simple choice game just for fun, following the plot of a detective and her dog who go into a town to research disappearances of locals and UFO sightings.
digital
2020
This piece was made in an attempt to learn about colors and flesh tones in a digital context. It’s a color study from a real life picture, over a loose drawing from imagination. It’s part of my quick sketches style but it’s still really fun and fresh
Where/How can Vacant Museum viewers see more of your work and where can they purchase it?
“You can check out my work mainly on my instagram page, where I post about 3 or 4 times a day: https://www.instagram.com/a_patica/ I also have a cargo collective where you can see some of my extensive works in detail:
https://cargocollective.com/apatica“