“Colours of the Caribbean”,

Palais des Nations, in the E-building, third floor, from 18 – 27, February 2003.

To celebrate its Day of Independence, and on the occasion of the International Year of Freshwater, the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations at Geneva, organizes an exhibition of paintings by Elizabeth Farinho. This exhibition, entitled “Colours of the Caribbean”, will take place at the Palais des Nations, in the E-building, third floor, from 18 – 27, February 2003.

Known for her paintings as well as for her active charity work, Mrs Farinho is a very devoted person. Having lived in many different countries, she became acquainted with the changing aspect of nature, and the impact of geography on the way people live and develop their cultures. Seeing beauty in this unique established link between nature and culture, she finds inspiration and feels at home in many different places of the world.

In her artistic creations, Mrs Farinho tries to express her visions of how colour and form, when combined harmoniously, may trans- form the atmosphere of a specific location. In every country, she says, there are places of sadness, pain and sorrow, and often monuments recall the history of that sadness. The scenery of these locations is often dramatic, but if we integrate colour and simple, pure forms to these places, this sadness might be inverted, or at least its hard edges might become softer. Often very casual objects might carry the ability to make this change; for instance fruits and flowers recall how beauty and nature could be evenly defined. It is important, she said, to avoid any transformations, and just search for beauty in the way things are.

“I don’t like sad things”, she said, “there are already so many of them. As an artist, I have an eye for how sad places could be trans- formed in places of beauty, not by changing them fundamentally, but just by adding a spark of beauty, by presenting them in a harmonious framework. Colour is very important for it communicates ideas and emotions, but so is movement, and I am intrigued especially by the concept of flow. That is how I see life, as an ungoing flow of interactions between nature and people, between the elements. ” On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition, on Thursday, 27 February, the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, His Excellency Mr. Rubén D. Núñez, will donate one of the works by Mrs Farinho to the United Nations Office at Geneva. The work, entitled “Reflejo marino” (Reflections of the sea), is part of a series on which the artist has been working for several years, and which is inspired by the beautiful seascapes of the Caribbean. The lower part of the paint- ing shows a transparent view of life in the sea bed, filled with fishes and sea stars. In the upper part of the painting, this underwater world is reflected in the sky, but painted in full bright colours. The reflections of the underwater world into the sky was explained by the artist as part of her experience of reality, as a continuity of, and an exchange between the visible and the invisible. This is symbolic for her understanding of her task as an artist – to bring to the surface and depict what she sees but remains invisible to others.