BRINCAR com letras grandes("PLAYING in big letters") is a visually vibrant and provocative composition that delves into the ambiguity between playfulness and truth, lightness and emotional manipulation. The work confronts the viewer with a saturated visual universe - filled with childhood references, fragmented objects, and clashing textures - orchestrated within an intentional chaos.At the heart of this whirlwind lies a subtle yet loaded question: “Plena mente?” (a wordplay in Portuguese suggesting both “fully conscious” and “full of lies”). The phrase operates as both riddle and critique, questioning the social habit of saying something honest in the form of a joke - only to quickly retreat behind the phrase “just kidding” when vulnerability is exposed. A gesture that simultaneously reveals and denies.The painting becomes a reflection on dishonesty wrapped in playfulness, where a playful aesthetic is used to camouflage deeper emotional tensions.  Visual elements like cherries, childlike patterns, and abrupt cutouts serve as metaphors for the desire to express honesty. “BRINCAR com letras grandes” refuses the superficiality of joking and invites a reflection on the courage it takes to stand by the truth - even when it arrives masked as laughter.

Emerging from Ana Malta’s ongoing exploration of process, transformation, and the unexpected possibilities of image-making, Per Aspera Ad Astra approaches the artwork not as something fixed, but as a space that can continue to evolve. Bringing together a print, sticker book, and series of stickers, the edition invites its owner to participate in that process: adding, moving, layering, or simply choosing to leave the image untouched.

Characteristic of Malta’s practice, colour, pattern, and intuitive gestures develop through accumulation, displacement, and the transformation of the unexpected into possibility. Here, that openness is extended beyond the artist’s hand, allowing time, choice, and participation to become part of the work. Taking its title from the Latin expression “through hardships to the stars,” Per Aspera Ad Astra embraces creation as a journey without a predetermined outcome, where each intervention opens the possibility of another direction.