Ten days in southern Minas Gerais -part two

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Varginha, view, oil on card, 16 x 14 cm unavailable

Cambuquira , rain on a pond, oil on card, 17 x 14 cm - unavailable

Cambuquira , a view from the hotel terrace, oil on card, 14 x 14 cm    SOLD

Cambuquira , the lonely duck, oil on card, 15 x 18 cm -unavailable

Boa Esperança, the lake, oil on card, 18 x 14 cm

 These pictures are the fruit of some short trips from Boa Esperança to nearby towns. 

Varginha is probably the ugliest city I have ever been to, with architecture of such gracelessness and  such a lack of general urban planning that might even some Brazilians might be taken aback. I cannot recommend going there.

By contrast, Cambuquira, an old spa resort, has considerable charm, unspoiled by the intrusion of contemporary Brazilian design. It`s gently crumbling away. We stayed in a most agreeably faded hotel from the thirties near the melancholy bus station and enjoyed wandering in the spa gardens trying the waters.

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Elevated Highway; Inter-urban painting

Elevated highway, oil on card, 12.5 x 10.2 cm; 54 US$ or equivalent - removed

One of a series of paintings which will feature the roads and suburban architecture that is a response to, and product of Florianopolis's intensive car culture (car ownership for the city runs at 50% per capita, an incredible number given the cost of cars relative to income in Brasil, and when you consider that this includes children and people incapable of driving).

The phenomenon of this interurban architecture is excellently considered in "Italy - Cross Sections of a Country," Scalo Zurich, 1998) by Stefano Boeri, which charts his work with the photographer Gabriele Basilico, describing the urban sprawl along various Italian highways, and with it the destruction of 19^th century city spaces and lifestyles.

This terrain has also been visited by painters before, most obviously Edward Hopper, and there are various other American artists who've dealt with this sort of landscape, including photo-realists.

Painting such scenes is not pleasant as it requires spending time in settings which are inhumane, good only for cars, often noisy and polluted. And a major reason for many painters for being painters is romantic rebellion: a pastoral retreat into the countryside, an escape from this suburbanity. I have those romantic tendencies myself. This world of parking lots and highways and shopping malls and storage lots, all interconnected by tarmac is disturbing, apparently centreless: the world of J. G. Ballard.

The Garden City (nocturne)

Here is the complete print (86 x 60 cm).

The Garden City

The first prints of the new series have dried, and I'm showing them on Flickr.

They're called "The Garden City", as a sort of homage to the planners of the nineteenth century.

I've structured the pieces with an underlying grid, with circles and other shapes overlain.