Art and Nature

 As you will see in the paintings (and photos) my paintings are all about nature and its various forms. Organic forms.

 The goat, the lotus flower, the lotus leaves on pond water, the goat skull, the orange fishes, the reddish flowers. The humongous white boar.

These creatures have lively forms full of possibilities. One turn of the goat's head and new shapes and textures appear. I take a look at the lotus flower from a different angle and the light and colors change. And the fishes of course, so hard to capture them with a camera in their constant meanderings beneath the surface water, how can one show such liveliness on canvas?

Just looking at these live creatures makes me want to draw them, to recapture them on paper or canvas, and keep those images in my memory. It's like you want them to be part of you, your experience, forever.

My paintings are my first attempts to make visible what i see in these creatures. Of course these are but poor imitations of what is real, but nevertheless, they have become lively pieces on their own, worthy of a second look, a third look. The paintings are objects that allow one to ponder the nature of Nature.

As for the animals and fishes which inspired these paintings, I am fascinated by creatures that give delight just by being themselves. They are uncomplicated, well at least less complicated than people. 

And these creatures enrich our experience of life in so many ways.  

That many people nowadays don't delight in them is a reality too. That is why they are relegated to mere creatures that serve our culinary and gastronomic delights. We can't even consider them as pets, and therefore don't look at them as beings with complex feelings and ways. We relegate the animals to the farm because the city has no place for them. The city is meant for people only, for dogs and cats yes but more than this is still unthinkable. I mean, a goat for a pet? Hah, kinilaw would be the foremost in most people's minds. Those who haven't developed the empathy for other living creatures have their own reasons of course, but I wonder if people can evolve without learning to consider the reality and valid existence of non-human life forms.

 

 I would like to bring attention to these animals and the other life forms with which they live with, and perhaps the paintings could make people look at these creatures with more careful, if not caring, eyes.

We eat animals for food. If we see them as beings with personalities and with certain characteristics that make them unique among their own kind, perhaps we would think twice about butchering them.

It gave me delight that some people have responded to the goat painting. Others like the white boar painting too. As I was painting these, part of me was saying -- why are you even painting these? Would people be even interested in them? But I painted them nevertheless because I liked looking them. As simple as that.

Do they see the same things as I saw while painting them? Hopefully yes. Will they see the long, ivory-like, pointy horns, the white, coarse, flowing hair, the half-shut eye that gives it a mysterious look? Or will they see goat meat instead? Maybe we can start by just taking a real look at these co-earthlings of ours.JBB

That's my friend Paz posing with her favorite painting, the goat. All paintings are on exhibit at the Likha Diwa Vegetarian Cafe, C.P. Garcia Rd., QC near UP, till end of April 2011. Everything's for sale, if they haven't been bought yet.