“During a recent residency in Vienna I spent time studying Gustav Klimt’s paintings. His group compositions, especially The bride, death and life, and The maiden called to me. I saw in them the joy and anguish of being alive; of loving, dying, and changing. The figures twist and fold like windblown petals or eddies in water, movements not unlike those in my marbled surfaces. I allowed his influence to mingle with other inspirations: Brazilian textiles, ornate jewelry, and natural forms embedding ideas of cultural hybridity and the decorative as political.

Underlying all is a belief I hold close: that nature and humanity are not separate. I draw from the wisdom of ecofeminism, which recognizes the parallels between how we treat the Earth and how we treat one another. In every brushstroke and form, I try to reflect a world that honors care over control, harmony over hierarchy. Ecofeminism reminds me that all life is sacred, that we are part of a cycle of birth, growth, death, and renewal.”

(Text by Dinorá Justice)

Dinorá Justice was the recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Painting in 2022 and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University Traveling Fellowship in 2020, the latter leading to a solo exhibition of new work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in November of 2023.