Wan, Praia Moçambique

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Wan, Praia Moçambique, oil on card, 17 / 16 cm  SOLD

One of my favourite places here, less visited, and very tranquil.

Again, like yesterday a bigger scale. I must get more cards tomorrow to prepare.

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Bird

Pixies

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Above, three pixies, each face about two centimetres

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Fragments

I'm playing more with the idea of making fragments deliberately, chasing Rodin,(and the whole of modern sculpture I guess). And chasing the idea of work which is non-monumental, intimate small work, whose strength lies in ambiguity, almostness and allusion. I'm making animals but trying to avoid the sweetness that this often seems to necessitate.

At what point does a work of art become so slight, so quiet that it ceases to be a work of art, and remains a dormant affecting no-one? Is there a minimal level of physical intervention?

Birdshead revisited

Returning to an earlier set of pieces: the birds.

 I had worked on them and they had become more and more like very obvious toys. I like toys, but the toys I like have a sense of abstraction about them, which is what lends them their charm (contrast Britains' very realistic animals and soldiers and cars with the far more abstracted tin soldiers and cars of earlier epochs).

I'd forced the pieces, making them far too explicitely "fun" and decorative when I should have let them be, allowing the viewer more space to draw their own interpretations.

Thus, in the guise of Redon, I return.

I also began making some horses: again I haven't found quite the equilibrum between a sort of Giacometti abstraction and realism, and they became too cute: I shall persevere.

They eat: our shared humanity.

Tenderness. Sharing food is important for Brazillians.

 

 I thought he might come over and assaut me at this point.

 

But in fact he was merely enjoying a Proustian moment.

 

And, fortunately for me, the needs of the stomach took precedence over honour.

My favourite: the chip resembling a moustache.

 Satiation. But is he happy?

A series of photos celebrating our shared humanity; part of an open-ended photo exploraration of Brazilians in their glorious diversity.

Two pictures - road-building; Chile

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Tarmac, oil on card, 12 / 14cm - unavailable

Tarmac, abandoned oil on card, 12 / 14cm - available

Part of the series tracing a new suburban development in Lagoa.

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I fly to Chile at the end of May: Santiago and Valparaiso. It is considerably cheaper to fly to Chile than to the North-East of Brasil, about half the price. I don't understand the air fares in Brasil at all: I suspect some sort of cartel.