Behind Every Work of Art, a Life Lived
- Franchesca Melendez
- May 17
- 12 min read
Updated: May 27
Art doesn’t appear out of nowhere—it comes from people. From hands that have worked, eyes that have seen joy and pain, and hearts that carry memory like a secret language. In Exploring Memory, each piece on display is not just an object to admire, but a fragment of someone’s journey.
To get to know the artists of Exploring Memory on a deeper level, I asked them a few questions about their life and art. I wanted to know what made them become artists and what memories they carry with them as they create. Some came to art early, others found it later in life; some express through color and canvas, others through sculpture, sound, or print. But all of them are storytellers—offering us glimpses into what they’ve seen, felt, endured, and dreamed.
As you read their stories, I hope you are able to see that behind every artwork is a person—living, questioning, remembering.
"People need music to heal. I need to make music to heal."
Ammany Clarke, Brooklyn, New York
I've always loved singing as a child, turning any appropriately shaped toy into a play microphone, and any raised platform into a stage. I didn't realize that I had the gift of song until I started really performing in front of others in grade school. And I didn't start writing my own songs until university. I think my natural spirit brought my mind and consciousness to the artform.
My inspiration comes from a higher source. I've nicknamed my project Project 2012 because I always revert back to the memory of me producing and recording my first song, on the spot with an app I had recently discovered on my iPhone one night. I was just experimenting but that same recording (no edits or do-overs) became the introduction to the album I released 12 years later. I wanted to honor my entire journey and the person I was when I started. I used to struggle with the idea of calling myself an artist because I thought there were so many other things that the world needed that didn't include yet another singer. But as I got older, I realized the true power of music. People need music to heal. I need to make music to heal. So that's why I would say I am an artist -- to provide healing.
"Being an artist is my way of honoring life!"
Zelia Evora, Caldas da Rainha, Portugal
I moved to Portugal at the age of ten, living here for 46 years now. At the age of 43 I was fired from my bookkeeping job and decided I wanted to walk a different path. So I worked as a textile artist and then fell in love with engraving, lino and woodcut.
People inspire me, I fall in love with peoples stories and my work tells these stories. Also, being monocular, I reflect that in my work, meaning my characters always only have one eye. I believe that for our work to truly belong to us, it has to have a great amount of truth that is only possible when you have lived what you are telling. So, I return many times to friendship, to relating to others, to my father who passed. Also to myself, who I was, am and want to become. Being an artist is my way of honoring life!
“Running wild in colourful fields of flowers”
Orly Shemesh, Tel Aviv, Israel
My creative journey started back in the 80's when I studied fashion, photography and silkscreen printing. In 1992 I moved to the Netherlands where I completed a study in offset printing. In those days I discovered clay as a material of expression. Following workshops and courses from renowned Dutch ceramists, this fascination for clay turned into a love affair which now lasts for almost 3 decades. The process of turning a concept into a physical object is every time an inner adventure, an ongoing struggle with a material that seems to have a will of its own.
One memory always comes back to me, it is that of me and my little sister as kids in the summer, playing and running wild in colourful fields of flowers outside the village where we lived. It’s a picture of a world without the complications and borders that adult life and society impose on us. It is this image of purity and natural beauty that I seek in the shapes I create, inspired by nature and how we humans relate to and interact with it.
Being an artist wasn't a choice I made. It was something that has always been a part of me. I've always felt a deep, instinctive need to transform my surroundings into something captivating and significant. My hope is that others can see and appreciate this essence in my artwork.
"I am an artist as it is how I express myself"
Cynthia Back, United States
I decided to be an artist at age 9 - my mother was creative/a frustrated artist and we were always making things. I started as a painter and gradually moved to printmaking, combining the two in collage form. I'm inspired by nature and the world around me, as well as issues such as environmental change.
Thoughts, memories creep into the work. I think of my path as an artist as many branches and I often revisit older work to seek forgotten ways, finding new paths to forge ahead. I am an artist as it is how I express myself and I have never had a desire or ability to do anything else.
"As an artist, I seek connection"
Rafael Serra, Coimbra, Portugal
I grew up in a family of drawing and painting enthusiasts. While I studied Visual Arts in high school, I didn’t really start pursuing the arts purposefully until 2020. Oil painting has always been romanticized as one of the most challenging and masterful mediums. I was drawn to that challenge—to push its limits and explore new creative ground. My goal is to inspire others and show that with dedication, the possibilities in art are truly endless.
Memory is essential to identity. But the true value I've found is that we as artists can use our art as a way to trigger memories, ideas, and atmospheres. With art we can come back to memory. We may change, but art and our memories will remain as reference points to tether us in worthy ideals, states of consciousness, central for our identities, character, and humanity. I used to see art as a purely superficial aesthetic experience; but then I began to understand its potential. From miles away, artist and observer are connected by a sensorial bridge carrying meaning and conscious experiences. For a moment there is unity. As an artist, I seek connection, I seek novelty, and to open up my inner doorway of creativity that brings the magical and the sacred back into a world I yearn to fan its spiritual embers.
"Why am I an artist? Because I can."
Jeff van Weereld, Netherlands
My journey didn’t begin in art—it started in chemistry. But even then, creativity was always close by. I played bass guitar in different groups, and during the late 1960s, I began experimenting with acrylic painting and small sculptures. In the early 1970s, I found a new language in discarded steel, creating wall sculptures that challenged form and function. Most of that early work has since vanished, but the spark never left. In 1984, I moved to Scotland and continued working with precision—this time designing scientific instruments. I later earned a master's degree in electronic engineering, and somewhere along the way, bronze and iron casting became part of my vocabulary, thanks to workshops at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop.
Today, my main focus is on wall sculptures made from sheet metal. Much of my work is a direct response to the world as I see it—especially the injustices and hypocrisies tied to social and religious systems. I’m particularly disturbed by how women are treated globally, and that anger often finds its way into my work. Eyes also appear often in my pieces. Maybe it’s memory, maybe it’s intuition—but there’s something powerful in the gaze, something that keeps pulling me back. Why am I an artist? Because I can be.
"Art is my great love...always."
Meridy Volz, Wisconsin, USA
I have been drawing and painting colorful people from age 3 to my present age of 77. Making art has always been my sanctum sanctorum and my calling. I received my first scholarship to art school at age 6, and topped off my art education with a degree in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin in 1971. My work has always been figurative, my mediums are oils, pastels, oil pastels, and charcoal. My work is Expressionistic, utilizing the figure as a vehicle for human emotions. My memories are all expressed in vivid colors and textures. The paint is applied with fingers and knives. I capture a moment in time, framed by deep feelings. Empathetic art from the heart...intense and colorful. I was born an artist, and will die an artist. Art is my great love...always.
"It's the way I show the world who I am."
Diana Baptista, Almada, Portugal
What started me on my path as an artist was my desire to express my feelings. It was a long road before I felt comfortable in the art I do, and I believe I only found out because I kept trying different ways of expressing myself. What inspires me to create is the need I feel to put feelings and stories onto canvas. I go back to childhood memories, to when I was still a child and loved using my creativity to make new things.
I like to believe that I continue to preserve the importance of being genuine in what I do and never devalue the new things I want to do and explore in painting. The incredible part of this adventure is that I couldn't explain why, I do it because it's a need I have. It's the way I show the world who I am.
“It gives me energy and insight—it never drains me.”
Katharina Ming – KAMING, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Street art and graffiti were my first deep connection to art. Around the age of 12 or 13, I spent every spare minute putting creative ideas on paper. Spray cans came in when I was 14. In my late 20's I loved creating freely, without a concept, rules, or expectations—straight from the soul. The process always mattered more than the outcome. I often painted over or destroyed finished pieces without showing them to anyone.
I’m inspired by my emotional and mental world—my thoughts, feelings, and dreams. Also by my environment: nature, cities, people… everything. Even scents, sounds, tiny details, and big-picture patterns can move me to create. My dreams often influence my art deeply. Sometimes I don’t even recall them until I start painting. I’m an artist because it’s the one thing that has always kept me interested. Creativity puts me into a flow where I forget everything else. It gives me energy and insight—it never drains me.
"Art is like the need to breathe"
Raquel Dias Vargas, Macau and Sintra, Portugal
My path in art began in the theater as an actress and director, which at the time seemed to me the most complete art form. Then I decided to use only my hands instead of my body and words. I kept my admiration for three-dimensionality and moved on to clay sculpture. Now I'm starting to combine drawing, painting and performance with sculpture.
For me, art is like the need to breathe. I know I can't do anything else or I'll be miserable. It's a mission. What inspires me is the freedom to be true and express whatever I want about everything that touches me, from childhood to politics.
Memory is all we have to build our history and the personal and unique way we see the world. I think everything I do is rooted in the months I spent with my grandmother as a child, the freedom she gave me and the strange, magical, rural world where I followed her everywhere in her village at the end of the world. She was a widow, strong and independent. I'm an artist because it's my way of making sense of the reality that surrounds me and that I find difficult to understand. I explore and investigate it that way.
"Do the memories of yesterday define who we are today?"
Anne S. Luisenbach, Leipzig, Germany
Looking back, the arts — in many different forms — have always been an essential part of my life: a way to express myself, and to reflect on my surroundings and my inner world. My artistic language is the result of an ongoing development — a continuous process, a constant engagement with the world around me and within me. I’m inspired by personal experiences, dreams, inner and outer dialogues — they all find their way into my work. Nature is also a fundamental source of inspiration. It grounds me, calms me. In my paintings, there’s a quiet yet profound philosophical exploration of the human condition and our relationship with the world.
Memory, to me, is fluid. Some moments linger, others dissolve. But even the ones that fade leave traces. They shape how I perceive the world, how I feel, and how I create. Do the memories of yesterday define who we are today? Maybe it’s not about holding on, but about allowing those impressions to move through me — as part of the process, as part of the art. Being an artist feels most natural. It frees me. It’s how I explore life — and myself.
It required absolute presence and attention.
Anish Patel, London United Kingdom
My journey with art started 10 years ago while living in Berlin. I started writing poetry, doing improv classes and then acting for 4 years. After that I started exploring sculpture starting with clay and then moved soon to marble stone. Stone is one of most solid mediums I ever worked with. It required absolute presence and attention.
Inspiration for me comes from anything that comes from intuition. Life happens and it's almost like you are called upon to create. Memory for me leads to a return to innocence; this child-like creativity that was lost somewhere in time. So many things in life get in the way — social conditioning, guilt, and fear. All this innocence was buried deep down. The innocent childlike place which is pure, simple and joyous.
Why amI an artist? It's just who I am. I am a born creator and explorer.
"What matters most is the journey, the path, the process"
Patricia Reis, Lisbon, Portugal
Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by the world around me—curious about the little details that often go unnoticed. That curiosity led me to get lost in my imagination, dreaming up magical, alternate realities. Even now, I still feel like a student of art—constantly exploring, experimenting, and discovering.
My work is an ongoing search for everything—it’s a path of growth, both personal and artistic. Every day I learn something new. What matters most is the journey, the path, the process — with total dedication and love. Over the past two years, I’ve felt a deep return to the past—going back to the beginning, seeing myself again through small windows of memory that I now lovingly bring into the present. These memories tell me that the dream I once dreamed has become real. Today, I am living the dream: being a painter, living to paint.
God gave me the second greatest blessing in life: being a painter. The first is being a mother. This influences everything, because through painting I express my story, my memories, my experiences, joys and pains, my resilience and strength to be a creator/artist amid great adversity.
“With my hands immersed in clay, I found healing”
Emma Inman, Chicago, Illinois, US
I´ve always been an artist, but started my journey as a storyteller, writing stories by the age of 10. I didn´t turn to ceramics until much later during a very dark time in my life. Following the death of my only child, my 18-year-old son, I was grappling with grief and mired in my own state of dark depression. My son was also an accomplished artist and we had plans to take a ceramics class together later in the year that I lost him. His spirit kept pushing me on to take the class. In that place, with my hands immersed in clay, I found healing and release from the pain I was experiencing. I could push clay, pound clay, mold, and form clay into pieces that spoke to my loss of my boy, pieces that contained secret meanings that only he would understand, pieces that spoke to memories of his life, and his impact on me. I was struggling with what role would be most prominent in my life now that I was no longer ´mother.’ Over time, the release of this anguish turned to being able to make pieces beyond my grief, and ultimately I began to experience joy inside the ceramic studio.
I think that artists are the storytellers and truth tellers of our times, and without artists experiencing events happening around them and interpreting those events through their work, history may be lost. I create work that speaks to my heritage as an African American, that speaks to injustice and to incomprehensible strength, resilience and pride. I am an artist because I have to be. I translate my world and the things that are meaningful and important to me through art. I hope that others experience a sense of joy, or strength, or struggle, and hope for all of us through my work.
Memory is fragile, but art gives it shape. Through line, form, and feeling, the artists of Exploring Memory remind us that even the smallest moment can echo across time. May their work inspire you to pause, remember, and maybe even create something of your own.
The Exploring Memory Exhibit can be viewed here or at Bohío Creative until June 21.
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