Leda Cruz Feminine Emotions Leda Cruz was born in Brazil, and moved to Lisbon in 1988, where she studied sculpture and did the Advanced Diploma in Plastic arts at AR.CO. Her career also spent some time in Angola and city of Leiria, which deeply influenced an intensely productive period dedicated to weaving, using highly unlikely materials such as glass and metal. During this stage, she established contact with Quattro gallery, where she was been exhibiting work since 1994. Her work is conceptual and focuses on a constant dialogue between the absence of the body shown in the objects and the clear evidence of the body see in instant polaroids. The sculptures and images complement each other though a disturbing aesthetic style, coming together within a dimension where â??the body is the place where emotion takes placeâ?. In her studio in Oporto, where she currently lives, the creation process is almost ascetic, orderly and impeccably clean as the final products themselves. The artistic process develops around a central theme: the female condition, becoming a purifying ritual in the form of a performance, reminding us of the solitary yet agile work of embroiderers. At the end, there is simply the intervention and the worn and wounded hands, a kind of tribute to all those women who suffer in silence. With only music for company, the artist makes minute, repeated gestures, building dense pieces loaded with latent meaning, in a celebration of love or in a silent protest against violence. Surprisingly, magnificent dress with bodice pierced by 10.000 pins is the proof of the duality and ironic essence of the message. Then there is the image from a 60s photo story, illustrating a Don Juan and his charismatic line: â??I love you terriblyâ?, which later became the name of an exhibition held at Casa da América Latina. The viewer is excepted to have the sensitivity necessary to interpret the content and disturbing aesthetics, to share in this complicity, conscious introspection and reformulation of cultural codes. Alexandra Novo in: Attitude Interior Design 19_2008 - Portugal