MadonnaTribe meets Ruis Paes

MadonnaTribe has had the pleasure to meet artist and illustrator Rui Paes who contributed his talent to Lotsa De Casha, the fifth children’s book by Madonna. We spoke with Mr Paes about the creative process behind the beautiful Losta illustrations, his background and his future projects, for this revealing exclusive interview.

Mr Paes also explains for the first time in detail the concept and meaning of his Madonna portrait, named The Madonna Of The Five Senses. What follows is a brief excerpt from the interview about this painting. You can read the full interview by clicking HERE or on the image below.

MadonnaTribe: We have heard that you completed a portrait of Madonna in the style of the book’s illustrations that wasn’t used in the end. Can you tell us more about that?

Rui Paes: Yes, “The Madonna of the Five Senses”, an oil on canvas which is now part of Madonna’ art collection.
It portrays Madonna wearing a 17th Century shepherdess straw hat, lined in purple silk and ornate with poppies (a symbol of love), wheat husks (for bread) and a pheasant tail feather (for openness). This same hat was sported by “Lotsa” in one of the images in the book.
She holds a partly peeled pomegranate in one hand (for Fertility) signifying the sense of Taste.
Her other hand holds one of the vervet monkeys from the “Facts”, in the story, signifying the sense of Touch.
Grappling on Madonna’s back, the second monkey from the “Facts” holds a pink English rose in one hand and a small round mirror in the other hand. Trough its wrist a small golden bell hanging from a blue ribbon, signifying the sense of Hearing.
The first monkey’s face (the one held by Madonna) looks through the mirror, straight into the viewers eyes, signifying the sense of Sight.
Coming from the lower left side corner, a “blue” greyhound’s head (“Lotsa”) sniffs the rose on Madonna’s shoulder, signifying the sense of Smell.
She also wears a red ribbon on her left wrist (for the Kabbalah) from which hangs a small golden disc with the Latin inscription “Musica docet Amore” which translates roughly as “Music teaches Love”.
In order to do the portrait I was sent around over 60 or 80 photographs of Madonna. From those I selected a dozen that I used as a base to building her portrait. I decided not to do a straight copy of one of the photographs as I find that rather dull.
And I chose to paint her in natural colours, without any make-up as such, to try and bring out her inner beauty.

Thanks to Mr Paes for sharing some quality time with M-Tribe and to Axel Potoms for his help and assistance. If you wish to leave a feedback about Mr Paes’ work please use our contact email: share@madonnatribe.com.
We will be happy to forward it to the artist. Thank You.