BIOGRAPHY

Joao Ladeira is a contemporary artist whose works comment on current affairs and particularly on issues affecting migration of people around world due to socio-political and economic instability, in particular in the African continent.  Ladeira’s art exposes the human side of displaced people on the continent of Africa.

Ladeira often uses African batiks in his works as a playful element. His art medium, a combination of drawings, painting and collage, highlights the plight of the economically vulnerable, displaced and marginalized in a global economy assailed with resources scarcity. Ladeira forces us to reflect on our connected and our humanity.

In Ladeira’s canvas we also find at times defaced figures with directional lines that forms a unique texture. They are meant to represent resilience and imprints of memories.

Ladeira uses his works as a tool for awareness, and to interrogate the often-forgotten migrant stories. The works aims to restore the dignity of the faceless, voiceless, and the nameless. From the artist own words “it is a way to honor particularly those who lost their lives and those who survived the drama of pursuit of a better life”. The works summarizes memories, the good and bad imprints of one’s journey that connects past, present and future. A smile, a giggle, frown and tears captured in memories humanizes us.