Creatures of colours

On the menu today : three strange (but colourful) creatures. The first one has been inspired by african masks. It looks like a genius coming out of the bottle with its blurred facial features and the colours behind that look like smoke appearing at the same time as the face. The second one is a totem with feathers (or leaves?) on its head and a snail on its right shoulder. The sun above it and the open hands make it very welcoming. It could be the representation of an animist imaginary culture's god. Maybe the god of the nature (sun + leaves + animal + rock-like face) or something else. Both seems to be caring and kind characters. The third one is even more mysterious with its third eye, turquoise skin, round body and two different big hands. It seems to be a wise and clever creature trying to communicate us something with its two fingers. This time, the sun is on the right side. Golden skies looks like they are eating dark clouds, giving the whole painting a positive feeling.

Ticino – A trip to the Italian part of Switzerland (part II)

On the first article about Ticino - the Italian part of Switzerland - I commented collages I made out of pictures I took during my trip there. Here are some of the original pictures I used for those collage, plus a few other one. I modified them with a basic computer programme. The first one has been taken at the top of San Salvatore Mount in Lugano. Its blue colour gives it both an old-school feeling and a dreamy-one. It's almost like the blue of the lake and the sky this day invaded the whole picture. The second one is a view from the top of Lugano. The framing is very particular. It gives the sky a lot of importance, as the main element of this picture. The light and its unsharpness make it ethereal and dreamlike. The mountains and the church tower seem to be like bridges between the earth and the sky. The 3rd one is the castle of Belinzona. The black and white reinforces the impression that this castle is ageless, traveling through the time wise as an old tree. The 4rd one is a small chapel like we see thousands in Ticino. It looks like a 60's picture. The two last pictures are kind of psychedelic, like most of my painting. It's an ode to dreams and creativity.

Flying Dog In The Swiss Alps

This painting belongs to the category of paintings I’m not sure I really like. Some days I do, some others I don’t.

For this one, I try new things, new styles. It’s very important for me to regularly try to reinvent one’s art, even if sometimes the resultat isn’t really convincing. I’m quite easily bored, so I need constantly to try and live new things. I’m not really used to paint lanscapes, but when I saw a great picture of the Swiss Alps with this tiny white dog walking on this small path in the middle of very green grass and huge mountains, I had to rush on my paintbrushes to create something out of it.

This painting isn’t technically perfect, at all. It makes me think of the naive art of Rousseau (I’m not comparing myself to this legendary French painter…ok?). Being used to create drawings with thousands of details, it sometimes hard for me to decide not to add too many details on my paintings. For this one, I succeeded in my mission : the colours structures are very simple. The sky is made of a pure homogeneous blue colour. The dark mountain is a big shape without any details. Even the dog look like a white peanut or a sheep without legs, tail or ears. Being so minimalist means for me a big struggle against my inclination to do too much.

What I like the most about this painting is its strangeness. The dogs with its weird shadow looks like he is flying over the path. We don’t really  know what he’s doing there alone in the middle of moutains. Maybe its owner is following him. Maybe he’s guarding sheeps. We don’t really know…and I love it. The spectator is free to interpret its meaning, to narrate its story…or simply to admire (or hate it) without looking for any meanings. Yeah I think art doesn‘t always need to have meaning, sometimes it’s purely aestethic.

Across the Adriatic Sea - From Slovenia to Trieste

They use to compare this small country called Slovenia to mine : Switzerland. They call it the Switzerland of the Balkans. Not only because of its size, but also because it belongs to the countries blessed by the presence of the Alps. Even its inhabitants have many common points with Swiss people : quiet and polite (I know I shouldn't write such cliché as an anthropologist...my university teachers would burn my diploma for such nonsense). But Slovenia, like my country, is also a cultural and geographical crossroad. Slovenia is also Austria, Italy and Croatia. The best exemple may be the food : all those countries have influenced what you'll eat when you'll visit Slovenia. It's a tiny country where you can hike in the mountains, then walk in wild forests, visit the famous island of Bled with a church on it...and then have a peaceful swim in the Adriatic Sea in Koper near a rocky beach where nearly nobody goes (if possible at sunset) - all in a small perimeter. More than anything, Slovenia is a peaceful place which is like a regenerative oasis that welcome you when you need some rest in this sometimes overactive world. Here some pictures I took during my trip in 2013. PS : even if it doesn't appear on this article (the pictures I took there weren't good enough), its capital Ljubjlana is definitely worth being seen.

Piran (Slovenia)

Koper (Slovenia)

Trieste (Italy)