BRAINTRASH

PORTUGUESE AND ARGENTINE SURREALISM

2011-09-13T01:07:00.000+01:00

You are cordially invited to the reception for the PORTUGUESE AND ARGENTINE SURREALISM art exhibition at the Recordatório Rainha Santa Isabel, in the city of Coimbra, featuring the work of Elizabeth Pantano, Paula Rosa and Santiago Ribeiro. The reception will take place at the gallery of the Recordatório Rainha Santa Isabel, António Augusto Gonçalves street, 9-11, Santa Clara, Coimbra, on Thursday, September 22, at 6:30.

The exhibition will continue to October 22, 2011, everyday from 11 am to 2am.

VIDEOS. DARWIN’S EVOLUTION – EXHIBITION IN PORTO

2011-02-08T21:52:00.000Z

Speech by Randal keynes (opening day - February, 1st, 2011)

Guided visit to the exhibition (opening day - February, 1st, 2011)

PORTO, HERE I GO!

2011-01-27T17:49:00.001Z

I'll travel to Porto (Oporto) on Tuesday to be present at the opening of the Darwin Evolution exhibition. As some of my work is integrated in the exhibition, I'm more than excited about it. Not only I love to travel but I also like this kind of anxiety feeling preceding each opening. This show was a success in Lisbon, Madrid and in Brussels. I hope Porto enjoys it too.

I've been looking for a nice hotel to stay and also some interesting places to visit in the city. I'm definitely determined to have a great time there, which includes great food, lots of Porto wine, and walking along the river banks. I'm even considering to take a Douro cruise (or I'll delay it until Summer). I decided to travel by car (which is a 'not-so-clever idea', considering the chaotic traffic in the city). All for the comfort, during the journey eh! Once there, I'll park the car and just walk trough the old narrow streets.

SOME FACTS ABOUT PORTO:

a view from Porto

Overlooking the Douro River, Porto is one of the most ancient European cities. It was born and developed from the northern bank of this river during the Middle Ages. One of the most significant aspects of Porto and its historical centre is its landscape, combining harmony with the urban structure and presenting a frame of rare beauty. The city was classified as World Heritage by UNESCO in 1996. Besides its welcoming and conservative environment, Porto is also contemporary and artistic. This is shown not only in the streets, architecture, monuments and museums but also in the terraces, restaurants and leisure and shopping areas.

Casa da Musica (The Music House), Porto. Foto by Pioforsky

Now lets talk about Port wine because it's one of my favourites and would be negligent not to mentioned on a post about Porto. Port Wine is a sweet fortified wine, exclusively produced in the Douro designated region, named after the city of Porto, where it is aged and bottled. Its unmistakable bouquet, body and flavour are due to the high quality of the grapes, as well as to the region's soil and climatic conditions.

Douro Valley

"Vinho do Porto" is basically a geographic name of origin. There are, in fact, several types of Port Wine - some are aged in wooden casks and others in bottles. The former are usually the result of a skillful blending of wines from different harvests, in order to keep the wine's vitality and to provide it with homogeneous characteristics. As a rule the label has no indication of date or vintage. The latter are produced from only one harvest. This said, we can find three main types on the market:

white;
red and ruby
tawny

I'll take this opportunity to visit the "The Port Wine Cellars", which are opened to the public and where visitors can taste this precious nectar and learn about its course over the ages. A place not to miss (hiccup!).

Port wine cellars in Gaia

All this said, it's yoga time now and I'll update information as soon as I arrive from Porto.

THE BOOK OF DISQUIET: A SHORT BOOK REVIEW WRITTEN FOR JULIE LAURIN - BOOKS OF 2010 (MY BOOK OF THE YEAR).

2011-01-21T22:03:00.003Z

The Book of Disquiet isn't just a book, it's a monument. Written by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), signed by his semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares and published posthumously (1982), this book has been considered one of the most significant works of the 20th century.

Pessoa is not a poet, he is more than seventy. The man of many “faces”, as he has been described, crushed by addiction and owner of a disturbing awareness of the world, sublimated his own genius through more than seventy heteronyms (known to date), each one possessing a highly distinctive poetic idiom and technique, philosophy and complex biography. Dozens of persons in just one, who were capable of producing not only poetry but critical works, philosophical tracts, plays, novels, letters and interviews. Pessoa dubbed them ‘heteronyms’ rather than pseudonyms, since they were not false names but “other names”, belonging to distinct literary personalities.

The Book of Disquiet is Pessoa’s most fragmentary work, but at the same time, the deepest and most complex expression of his thought, emerging as a portrait and a dramatic confession of the author, introduced by him as a "factless autobiography." Terribly individualistic, sometimes painfully individualistic, scenario nailed to the walls of paper, a man who suffers and laments poetically in the darkness of his rented room. It’s a nauseating portrait of life, existencial, in the form of a fictional diary of an assistant bookkeeper and his life made of moments: the back of a man who climbs a street in Lisbon, a view from the window of a high floor office in downtown on a rainy day, the picture with the co-workers, the dormancy of working with a fixed schedule in a given task, memories of the dead times of childhood in a patchwork of sounds and images of happiness (made larger than it actually was), a trip to Sintra or the passing women who walk away with a smile not directed to him. Salvation is a mirage, happiness is vague and ephemeral. Everything is a question and nothing is safe, not even ourselves in front of a mirror (especially ourselves in front of a mirror).

"If i think, it all seems absurd to me; if i feel, it all seems strange; if i desire, he who desires is something inside of me."

This book is, strictly speaking, a great piece of theater in a whispered monologue of the soul - a timeless monologue that I'll never forget. The Book of Disquiet is definetely one of the most insightful books a person can read and I dare to say that no one keeps the same after reading it. As Pessoa put in words all that we forget to remember, as every written thought is a pearl, It can be delighfully addictive.

Paula Rosa

IMAGINE THE IMAGINATION - New Visions of Surrealism

2011-01-21T21:41:00.006Z

The book aims to show the variety of contemporary surreal art including almost 100 works in different media: traditional painting and drawing, digital painting, fractals, photomanipulation, photography, mixed media, sculpture, traditional prints, and more. The collection will be classified in 3 groups: Visions, Dreams and Nightmares, all this mental manifestation has been the source of inspiration for this revolutionary movement since the 1920s. The mind gates are open to explore the deepest of the subconscious in this visual dialogue with the “other”, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought.
I am featured in this book (released on the 10 of February, 2010) in the category of mixed-media ,nightmares. Was certainly a great pleasure for me to collaborate with the nEgoist team. For more details and to order the book, please visit the nEgoist shop

Featured Artists:

Mr. Borda Danut Adrian, Reinhard Schmid, Jason Hopkins, Amy Kollar Anderson, Scott Façon, Andy Brady, Livia Alessandrini, Arif Bahtiar, Steve Smith, Terevet, Mariana Paola Urzua (Mariana Palova), Bogdan Zwir, Janelle McKain, Nicolas Tcherno-Ivanenko (Naiko), Bernard Dumaine, NoMe Edonna, Ehsan S. Azzuz, James I. Koehnline, Stepan Sergeevich Radibog (neonihil), Alessandro Fantini, Sal Hunter, Robert Steven Connett, Paul Flockhart, Lucian Stanculescu, Aleksander Marek Korman, Max Sauco, Manon Gosselin, David Whitlam, Szymon “Anapt” Siwak, Wojciech Grzanka, James Skelton Smith, Jon Jaylo, Véronique Portal (vic4u), Piotr Zygmunt, Babar Moghal, Christine Morren, Kris Kuksi, Leszek Kostuj, Ondrej Provaznik, Jussi Löf, Joe MacGown, Vladimir Moldavsky, Cenin von Catlien (Burcu Corbaci), Ben Drewry, Ingvild Nilsen, Otto Rapp, Joe Pimentel, Ian Anderson, Leo Plaw, Deborah Valentine, Barbara Wiewiórska, Jaroslaw Kubicki, Héctor Pineda, Gromyko Padilla Semper, Miguel Tio, R. L. Frisby, Adam Scott Miller, I. T. Hammar, Tassos Kouris, David Senecal, Joshua S. Levin, Anita Zofia Siuda (siudajSTEJ), Dan Wininger (Danger), Dariusz Skitek, Christian Exequiel Montoya Flores, Pete Hamilton, Mary J. Sheridan, Sebastian Baumer, Suzzan Blac, Amygdala-mars. Gabriel Pürstinger, Ron Eady, Artur Piotr Grejner, Adam Pinson, Larissa Kulik, Paula Rosa, Brenton Bostwick, Jayakumar (Consciousspace), Aleksander Rymarowicz, Christian Edler (reality must die), Renaldo Renaldo (Rens Ink), Marc Dubord, Pedro De Kastro, Igor Siwanowicz (Blepharopsis), Michael Birnstingl, Jon Beinart, Joseph Larkin, Martin Jonsson, Ben Tolman, Ton Haring, Emily Ross.

VISIONARY ART YEARBOOK 2010 – 2011

2011-01-21T21:36:00.001Z

In January 2009, Otto Rapp started a private network of Visionary Artists on the Ning Platform with a handful of friends. Since then, it has steadily grown and includes many well known Fantastic and Visionary artists. Many of these artists had been friends of Otto’s for decades, others are new to the fold. The yearbook, edited by Otto, is a celebration of the cooperative spirit of these artists and their accomplishments. There are over 400 pictures and illustrations on 160 pages, with essays by De Es Schwertberger, Sigrid Nepelius, Prof. Philip Rubinov-Jacobson, Helena Nelson-Reed and Delvin Solkinson, as well as numerous memorable quotes by our members. Three blank pages were added at the end of the book so people could collect signatures, if they happened to be attending an exhibition which included any of the published 201 artists.

The book, featuring two of my paintings, is now available from blurb.

DARWIN’S EVOLUTION – EXHIBITION IN PORTO, PORTUGAL

2011-01-21T21:29:00.001Z

After Lisbon, Madrid and Brussels, the exhibition “DARWIN’S EVOLUTION” will return to Portugal on February 1st.

The exhibition, curated by biologist José Feijó, gives an insight to life and work of Charles Darwin, including his trip around the world aboard the HMS Beagle and the evidence that led him to postulate the revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection. The Natural History Museum, University of Porto, the National Museum of Natural History, the American Museum of Natural History, the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid or the Musee de Histoire Naturelle de Paris are some of the contributors to an estate that has central focus of the collection donated by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In order to highlight the scientific importance of Darwin and his contribution to the expansion of knowledge, evolution and biodiversity, the exhibition also includes an area for live animals in the greenhouses of the Botanic Garden, in collaboration with Zoo Santo Inácio. Going into two distinct environments, desert and tropical, visitors may observe a universe populated by turtles, meerkats, macaws, marmosets, among other animals with clear evidence of the mechanism of natural selection at work. Within the exhibition there will be an educational program to all schools and many other activities will take place, organized for audiences of all ages, which include workshops, lectures, music , drama and practical workshops.

I created a few presentations, movies and some interactive stuff for this show. It basically consists of 24 complex morphs of animal skeletons and a gigantic animation projected on the wall. There’s also a movie based on Charles Darwin’s book “The Expression Of The Emotions In Man and Animals”.

More info: http://expodarwin.up.pt/

ODE TO A SUN BLOCKER

2008-11-02T21:14:00.001Z

It's Summer at the biggest Spanish beach.
The Polyvinyl chloride sea is
apparently flexible and translucent.
P...V...SEA.
Poliethilene sand, made in France, widely salted by cigar butts.
Extreme sunblockers smelling like coconuts.
The message is in the bottle, dissimulated.
The message is on the bottle, explicit.

Emulsions.

The phenomenon of polymerization testified right there, at the nearest beach,
by a macro-chain of empty bottles.

Ecran Total.

Giant molecules, wisely brown pigmented.
The product was necessarily water resistant and apparently non comedogenic.
A mass of oily silhouettes, sculped by plastic nutrients, roast in peace, under a burning sun
(not extremely blocked).
Apply evenly and reapply as needed.
Glass fiber, frosted with additives, surf the waves on the horizon.
I reajust my dark plastic screen to correct no refractive errors
A warm breeze brings the smell of ice-cream...
and it's always thermoplastic strawberry.

May we all roast in peace on a Summer day.
Necessarily hippoallergenic?

morphing

2007-10-06T09:46:00.000+01:00

Nymph IV

2007-10-02T20:33:00.001+01:00

2007-09-13T10:05:00.001+01:00

2007-09-12T21:36:00.000+01:00