Brazilian Oxcart with Sugar Cane Woodcut Print - Oxcart

Artisan Organization: Ivan Borges

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Ivan Borges was born among prints and grew up amid them. His father is J. Borges, a renowned woodcut artist whose works are widely recognized. With his father, Ivan has traveled to exhibit and teach his art in workshops in Europe and in the United States, and the young man continues traveling on his own to show his works abroad and to sell them all over Brazil.

"I was born in 1978 in Bezerros, a small city of the State of Pernambuco," Ivan says. "Since the age of ten, I have helped my father in his atelier but, at the age of fifteen, my life turned upside down. My girlfriend got pregnant. We were too young and, for a year, each of us stayed in our parents' homes.

At seventeen, we decided to go to São Paulo with our baby boy and have our own home. We lived there for two years. I have worked as a gardener, wall painter and bricklayer assistant. Upon returning to my small hometown, I again went to work with my father. I was creating my own woodcuts and, when I was twenty, I decided to have my own workshop.

"I was father and grandfather very early. I have two sons and a daughter who gave me a grandchild. Despite the recognition of my works, it hasn't been easy to live and raise my family only from my art. But this is what I like to do and I feel fully satisfied.""