Collaborative affection,

Distinctively shaded,

Yet intimate,

Enhancing hushed inner layers

“Collaborative Affection” emerges from De
Souza’s ongoing process of gestural writing and her distinctive cut-out text
technique, which transforms language into a visual and emotional presence
within the work. Built through successive layers of acrylic paint and
handwritten text – later obscured, revealed, and reworked – the piece
incorporates acrylic, pencil, graphite, and oil stick. These marks accumulate
like diary notes or musical notations, forming a rhythmic field of visceral
language. A fragment of the inner writing that informed the piece –
“Collaborative affection, / Distinctively shaded, / Yet intimate, / Enhancing
hushed inner layers” – serves as a quiet emotional thread, echoing through the
gestures even as it dissolves into abstraction. The result is a surface that
reflects an intimate, evolving dialogue between emotion, material, and the act
of making.