Aguas Mornas

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 Aguas Mornas: houses and farms, oil on card, 19 x 16.5 cm  SOLD

Aguas Mornas: trees on a hillside, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm -  -unavailable

Two from the interior: the last most likely before I begin my trip on Thursday to Bolivia.

The cup is over, and things are returning to normal. Thank goodness.



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Bolivia

Bolivia, from Dorling Kindersley`s Atlas

The itinerary for my Bolivian expedition is as follows: fly to Campo Grande in Mato Grosso, Brazil, then bus to Corumba. Then  train to Santa Cruz. Then bus to Sucre, Potosi and La Paz, in which three cities I will spend the majority of my time. I return from La Paz taking the bus and stopping at Cochabamba, and on to Santa Cruz. I take the train from Santa Cruz to Corumba, before getting the bus over to Campo Grande.

This is far more places than, ideally, I would wish to stop at, but given the size of Bolivia and the slowness of buses, I think it is better to break up my journeys. It is unfortunate that the more interesting parts of Bolivia are the furthest away.

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I am overjoyed to be moving again. The last months here have bored me stiff. This is a tedious little city- or rather, collection of suburbs- whose inhabitants seem to believe that going to shopping malls is the most diverting activity imaginable.

It has been rained considerably too, making me housebound, and I am not really constructed for domesticity. I wish I had planned the year better to avoid the World Cup, and the heat of January too.  Next year I will travel through January and February.

A little trip to Alfredo Wagner

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 Alfredo Wagner river, oil on card, 15 x 18.5 cm -  available

 Alfredo Wagner, lane, oil on card, 14 x 14.5 cm   unavailable

 Alfredo Wagner small town nearby, oil on card 16.5 x 18 cm   SOLD

I`m ashamed to say that I can`t remember the name of this small town, and can`t find it on the map either.

 Alfredo Wagner, a residential area, oil on card 16 x 18.5 cm - unavailable

 Alfredo Wagner, houses by the river, oil on card, 13.5 x 18.5 cm    SOLD

Araucaria tree, Near Alfredo Wagner, oil on card, 17 x 17.5 cm    SOLD

Paintings from a recent  trip into the Catarinense Mountains.

 Alfredo Wagner is not a bad place to base oneself for a short trip, if coming in from Florianopolis. True, it isn`t terribly interesting in itself, but the surroundings are splendid,  with quite a fairy-tale atmosphere to me.

I like the people of the mountains. They strike me as an industrious bunch, working in their small-holdings right up to the moment Friday`s world cup match began. They have that cheerfulness you often find in hard-working people. They keep their towns tidy, and you can see the townspeople sweeping the roads in the mornings. 

They are conservative places but they are not dour. They had  the national flag on display all over the place, though I suspect many must privately regard much of the rest of Brazil with considerable disdain. I wouldn`t blame them if they did.

Flowers, First of July

Flowers, First of July, 12.5 x 13.5 cm    |SOLD

Looking down on the lake, Lagoa

Looking down on the lake, Lagoa, oil on card, 16.5 x 18.5 cm   SOLD

Trying to work without correcting or fussing over the results.


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Stephen Walton Fine Art; galleries and dealers

Red, yellow and pink flowers, oil on card, 14.5 x 18 cm

Flowers, oil on card, 18 x 15 cm

 Chrysanthemums, oil on card, 13 x 13 cm

Yachts, Coney island, N.Y, oil on card, 15.5 x 11.5 cm

A Chinese Restaurant, East Village, N.Y, oil on card, 11.5 x 14 cm

Washington Square, Manhattan, N.Y., oil on card, 13.5 x 14.5 cm

These are six paintings selected by Stephen Walton for his gallery.

 He will be acting as a dealer for me in England. He is based in Bury, and can be contacted through http://www.waltonfineart.com/

He has made a nice selection, and has considerable experience, and I am optomistic that he will be able to place the pictures with buyers. he contacted me after seeing my work in the Royal Academy Summer show.

For North African pictures you can contact Rose Issa Art Projects in London. And the Union Gallery in Edinburgh`s Broughton Street also holds a number of my paintings.

Entrance to a little favela, Ratones

Entrance to a little favela, Ratones, oil on card, 15 x 18 cm - unavailable

Dogs, adolescents and rubbish: both the adolescents and the dogs roam about this little area, the adolescents smoking cigarettes and looking at each other or at the dogs and then occasionally conversing. The dogs do a lot of sniffing.  Both the adolescents and the dogs are are quite friendly. 

The male adolescents have some bizarre vanities: they smell very strongly of a particularly nasty aftershave (or is it insect repellant?) and one has managed to bleach his hair so it appears that someone has glued a sponge to the top of his head. Both the adolescents and the dogs roam around this little area.

I am not sure if, technically, this is a favela. But then, the definitions vary widely to encompass both from social to architectural criteria.