My Peruvian Adventure- Ayacucho Part One: in town

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My Peruvian Adventure began in Ayacucho, that elegant city of thirty-three churches and my paintings from there divide into two groups: views from the town, and specific buildings.

My original idea was to go from Ayacucho to Huancavelica but this was impossible as the road was blocked because of a landslide. After a few days of becoming increasingly frustrated and being misonformed, and suffering the tedium of two day general strike, in which the entire city shut down,  I changed plan and instead went to Andahuaylas, from where I knew I could fly to Lima.

As places to be stuck in, Ayacucho is by no means the worst but somehow the plan of the city, and it`s narrow streets makes it feel quite claustrophobic.

Ayacucho, a view from a hotel, oil on card, 16.5 x 19.3 cm  available

Ayacucho - a building in a park, oil on card, 14 x 17.2 cm - arch

Ayacucho, Arch, oil on card, 14 x 17.2 cm -available

Ayacucho, a street in the centre, oil on card, 14.5 x 18 cm - unavailable

Ayacucho, buildings in a neighborhood of workshops  - available
 oil on card, 15 x 17.5 cm

This picture (above) seems rather the "odd one out" and is reminiscent of pictures I did down in Puno in 2016. I rate it as one of the best of this year's set.

 These sorts of neighborhoods, with workshops and simple buildings are often very atmospheric, and inspire good pictures. One regret I have from the 2016 trip is that I didn't stop in Juliaca,  just north of Puno and has an abundance of such utilitarian architecture where they fix cars, sell construction materials and so forth.

Chucrh, Ayacucho, oil on card, 17 x 15.5 cm  available

Little Deco church and woman, oil on card, 17 x 18 cm  available

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A visit to southern Peru: Puno; part three, down by the market

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Puno, red car, woman, oil on card, 15 x 16.5 cm  SOLD

Puno, a lady in a red skirt, oil on card, 14 x 12 cm  SOLD

This picture above, above, is one of the best from this trip. It convey's the rugged feel of the place well in the roughness of technique.

Puno, late afternoon, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm - available

I continued this way: a cross between impressionism, and art brut approach (not so much a choice as an instinct) working rapidly and directly. It has something to do with saying- these are the limits of my capacity to know, I can only see so much now, let me not pretend.

 The places depicted here are in some senses ugly, unfinished, in other senses they are places with potential, rudely muscular like many young places in Latin America,

Puno, people going about their business, oil on card, 13 x 14 cm  AVAILABLE

The last four pictures revive the sense of stimmung, the concept of  which de Chirico writes about eloquently with reference to Nietszche, and seeks to introduce into his own work. He describes(from The Memoirs og Giorgio de Chirico,  translated by Margaret Crosland, Da Capo Press, 1994):

 ...a strange and profound poestry, infinately mysterious and solitary...this extraordinary sensation can be found (but it is necessary, naturally, to have the good fortune to posess my exceptional faculties) uin Italian cities  and in Mediterranean cities like Genoa or Nice; but the Italian city par excellence where this phenomenan appears is Turin.

Does the  clear light of the Andes which resembles that of de Chirico`s Turin?

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These streets contain many incidents, and suggest the possibility of incident. They are market streets but given my aversion to people watching me while I worked, I painted the less busy streets.

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A double carrier

The double carriers worked reasonably well. There were difficulties with one: the cases have to allow for the fact that in hot weather the card supports start to buckle in the sun and take up three or four times the depth than otherwise, so it is best to compensate for this with fairly deep case frames.

 I used glue rather than blu-tac to hold the pictures. It seems more secure than the blu-tac. The pictures can be removed from the carriers fairly easily. 

These carriers allow me to take considerably more pictures home with me, and therefore open the possibility of longer trips? thus Ecuador, in January, might well be a whole month.

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A visit to southern Peru: Puno; part two, in the neighbourhood

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Puno, the end of a street, oil on card, 14 x 15 cm  - sold

Puno, man, dog, oil on card, 12 x 13.5 cm 

These were painted in the streets north-west of the Plaza de Armas, an area possessed of considerable mystery.

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A visit to southern Peru: Puno; part one, from my hotel

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Puno, the street below, oil on card, 18.5 x 14.5 cm unavailable

Puno is situated on the banks of Lake Titicaca, but despite the location is there is an old but not especially striking cathedral, but apart from that little of architectural distinction that I could find.

However, I found it rather agreeable, and it's one of my regrets on this trip that I didn't pass time in nearby Juliaca, Both are working cities, with dusty, brown, boxy architecture, and many people getting on with ordinary life: buying selling constructing- though Juliaca even more so- such places are very satisfactory to get on with painting. 

There'ss a a warren-like quality to the town: it reminded me of early photos of Manhattan pre-skycraper: a tight grid plan, few cars, many people, occasional poverty, buildings fighting for elbow room.

I found myself adopting styles of painting to accommodate this sensation: a coarse , angular, direct, unrefined, partly based on cartoons.

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