I draw inspiration from those childhood experiences on the vast, windy plains, as well our frequent family visits to Santa Fe, where I had aunts, uncles, and cousins my age to play with. One of my aunts lived in a beautiful Territorial Style adobe house on what was then the edge of Santa Fe. Interested in architecture at an early age, that house and family visits to the nearby pueblos left me amazed that they were made of mud. 

I create works in varying degrees of abstraction, depending on the subject matter or a specific message I wish to convey. My “invented landscapes” are abstract representations drawn from imagination, memory, or something I’ve read. They usually have a distinctly regional character, and for those in this exhibition, I elevated my view of the imaginary landscape in order to capture a sense of its depth and vastness.  Also included here are some works that give a nod to the crafts of the region’s Native American tribes. In all of the works - landscape and otherwise - I’ve tried to evoke the spirit of Southwest regional art without resorting to cliché.
​Harold Joiner, November 2024

A Discussion with Silvia PintoSouza,
Archway Member Artist


Silvia PintoSouza, born in Bucaramanga, in Santander, Colombia, experienced a diverse and colorful educational path.  Her art began lovingly with her mother’s influence.  This continued in a Pan-American school, high school in Bogota, months in North Carolina as an exchange student, and ending with college in London.  Silvia later attended more art courses in Brazil, where her husband is from.  

With this lively art background, Silvia talks about her mother’s talented encouragement, giving her a solid start.
“When I was a child, my siblings and I would do our school homework on a big table in my mother’s studio.  She was an oil painter, and had her easel, paint tubes and work tools in that studio.  My grandfather became a world traveler after he retired.  He sent her art books from museums he visited, she could copy from the great Masters.  This is how she first learned to paint. 

Silvia continues talking about these influences. 
“As an artist, I am visually stimulated by images with strong potential to become works of art by their rich color, and by a bold contrast between light and shadow, a geometrical and spatial composition or a variety of textures.  
I can say that I am eclectic, which according to the dictionary, is a ‘person who derives ideas, style or taste for a broad and diverse range of sources’.   Also, the use of collage and textures is an important means of creating diverse surfaces on the canvas, which become the base of my acrylic paintings.