Paulo P. Lima, Ph.D.
B R A Z I L I A N B A R O Q U E
F I G U R I N E S
&
P H O T O G R A P H Y
My art gives me the opportunity to explore my most intimate feelings and to express them in a combination of colors, textures, lines and shapes through photography and costume design. In 2009, I graduated with a MFA in Costume Design from the California State University, Long Beach. During my three years in graduate school, I rediscovered my passion for color and textures by learning different felting and hand-dyeing techniques, which I use today to decorate my Brazilian Baroque Figurines. My training as a designer provided me with tools to look at events from a costume designer point of view, interested in dress contextualized in daily life.
As a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Theater and Performance Studies at UCLA I was researching and writing a dissertation on the Afro-Brazilian dress worn by practitioners of Candomble, an Afro-Brazilian religion developed in Brazil since the beginning of the eighteenth century. During my research in São Paulo and Salvador, Bahia, between October 2012 and March 2013, I used photography to register various moments of faith, collecting images of religious and secular performances alike. A reflection of my personal interests and desires, I wanted to create a poetics of images, a quilt of identities, unfinished, and historically specific that could tell a story—a visual essay of what means to dedicate a life to Orixás (deities belonging to Candomblé pantheon of gods and goddesses usually associate with forces of nature: water, air, fire, and earth). Some of these images are featured on this website.
The “Dream Collection” is a study of elements from Candomblé from São Paulo and Salvador, Bahia. It also features images of events that I have been exploring in Los Angeles and in my travels around the world.
Having completed my doctoral degree from UCLA, my photography allows me continue my research and be in contact with my Brazilian heritage. It is through photography that I engage with my sense of beauty, exploring aspects of “decay” (buildings, nature, and dress) in relation to space and bodies. In my artistic explorations I seek to explore beyond the binaries of beauty and decay.
Vintage Baroque figurines serve as mannequins for my costume creations. They are the result of my passion for design and a creative outlet for my dreams.