The friendings

I block you

from all my cybernetic life reproduction sources.

Its not very dramatic in real life but than these days, much experience of life, people have is that which they gather and share trough the prism of technology and internet. Blocking someone is possibly the kick in the balls of real life. Any yet it must be done. It can be politely avoided, but I am one of those people who burns bridges.

I have a need for it. I need to blow the fucker up, and than watch the smoke and say now the bridge is burnt, even if this means I have to walk miles up water to cross the same river, but ultimately it forces me to create new paths, new relations, and more importantly just deal with the fact something is was not working for me and I must end it and start anew.

I am talking about  Friendship brake ups. We are all used to having a history of romantic brake ups in our lives, - the most decent way for things to end between two , is the break up, how ever ugly- rather than the vague corruption and very slightly noticeable , stretched over tedious amount of time auto destruction of a relation. The second is sickening. However most of the time the second method is what we apply in the case of a friendship which we have out grown, for what ever reason. 

I have several times in my life been in a friendship, which I start to feel is too intense, is suffocating and don't know how to stop it being so, I feel sad to end it.. Than I kind of continue socialising ,with less oomph, less frequently, but my gaging reflex is turned on often during these encounters, my suffocation/claustrophobia feeling is heightened, mixed in with joy at moments which are ok,- at their very being ok, and my being wrong for being so bothered by this up to than, close friend.

And than, upon this bundle of dead stuff mixed in with a little still sappy and green leaf, a spark flies, a situation, a perfect excuse, the fucking destiny , and the whole damn thing goes up in flames with smoke to be seen at a distance. The friendship, I mean, goes up in flames.

And do you know what I feel after wards? Relief. I feel like I can breathe. Like that is exactly what I needed.

Its not entirely logical or maybe it is. But this is a way a number of fast paced friendships, which became very close, very fast, very intense, and yet there are certain elements about that person or our relation , which are bugging, beeping, in the background, which seem utterly irrelevant, but bother, and eventually become of the utter relevance, and flip the whole thing, over and out.

I have wonderful friendships which have lasted decades without this happening.
I think it is intensity of a friendship, that bothers me. And jealousy, the moment I feel like that friend is boxing me into their "best friend " box, and this justifying their  being jealous of my time with other friends, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. And these people do exist. Than I turn into a waiting bomb. I mean who has the right to be jealous of a friends hanging our with other friends , right?




The awful thing is, that I do sometimes regret the launching method with which I launched these people into space away from me.  My method is the cutting, clean, with a letter. The letter can be explanatory, of my reasons ,but contains acidic humour, with which I condescend  and provoke  the person enough to make them mad at me and want me out of their life too, right than and there, and the very act of their reading my letter is like signing a mutual ending agreement as by the time they have read it, it will be all over.



The worse thing is, that I have realised that no one disappears. I mean- I have lived in various countries, moved among a huge amount of people of whom many I will not remember the names of, but people do not disappear. People form where ever in the world, appear in your life more than once. So its really never a real end when you end things with a person, because in some context or other you will bump in to them and be forced to communicate against your own pride. Than you may regret having ended it with a "spark" or bad words.

Or what may happen is that after a long break, these people you liked years ago, than hated, than disliked, than did not mind, ,than had no contact, suddenly have something in common with you and you end up actually quite enjoying their company and surprising yourself.  Probably you will be more wary of the person, and it will never be as great a friendship as it once was but neither as chokingly intense.


There are friendships too which end with no burnt bridges, they end with an ice age. I have a friend who iced everyone in a circle, including me for a long while, until the ice melted, our methods may have something to do with our geographic root belonging, I coming form the fiery south needed to spice it, and her coming from the frozen north just freezing everyone. Her method has the advantage of not having insulted anyone directly. And than there are friendship's which just kind of solidify and still, than bouble like lava, unpredictably.



This project I have been painting has pushed me to get in touch with a lot of friends who just kind of disappeared due to "logistics". Geografic distance + life going on,  and time passing so quick , that we where far away from being able to update one another from the spot we last met. But than that special magic, which was relevant and attractive years ago, was just as relevant , the second we met even trough skype.  It was kind of amazing to feel a person after so many years.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that these millions of miles away friends can still be very relevant and present in our lives. Also if stuck in some sparse social context, you are not entirely stuck , as long as the internet is working. On the other hand once it all goes to pot, and you end up blocking someone wishing never to see them again, well you better face the fact one day you will unblock them all on your own accord, so prepare your pride today.

Never the less. Ahh it feel so dam good to burn that bridge sometimes. Who knows if something will or will not grow in the ashes later. A forest fire, makes space for a new forest to grow.

pre show flutters

Tomorrow is the show, and tonight I bought the frames, framed most of the works, painted to completion what I thought where unfinished ones.
But the thing is even in the same project I have developed a variety of styles, depending on my mood.  It seems the less paint I put on, the more beautiful the paintings, and yet I sometimes have to work it like an ox works a field. And its always just the same the fear of the unknown the next step, will I ruin this, will I have to give up and start again which I am reluctant to, so I burrow on until several aesthetic solutions happen one after another on the same painting and of the same portrait, and eventually I settle with a style. hm. I have settled with Kzenya looking like a pretty Disney character, and Giada looking like a rainbow woman, and Linda appearing form a pink cloud , which is a style separate to the rest of the collection, but it somehow described them whe n I painted them live and I feel restarting from photo would be cheating and lack something .

Any way good night. This will be the second show painted since giving birth to Floriana last February, first show this year, and I hope there will be many more realised his year, and in various countries . Now good night.
sunci

A CALL FOR MUSES WHO WORK IN ART

ANY PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO BE MY MUSE

FOR A LIVE / SKYPE PAINTING

FOR MY 80 PORTRAITS AROUND THE ART WORLD PROJECT

PLEASE CONTACT ME HERE

( TO BE PAINTED FOR THIS PROJECT YOU MUST BE WORKING IN ART

ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

 AS AN ARTIST, CUARATOR, WRITER, GALERIST, COLLECTOR, 

OR OTHER ART EMPLOYMENT)

WRITE TO ME AND TELL ME WHY I SHOULD

 PAINT YOU, WHAT DO YOU DO..?

 

My aim is to paint a collection of 80 portraits of people working in the art world wide sceene,

whom I get into contact with using social technology and whom I paint using internet technology,

 so painting an anthropological image, a slice of the arts scene at this time in history using and

representing the technologies we live symbiotically with.

I intend to exhibit the finished project.

(I PAINT FOR FREE FOR THIS PROJECT)

80 PORTRAITS AROUND THE ART WORLD / RICCARDO CRESPI

Out of the last four nights during which I have painted 4 portraits, the females I painted not entirely to my satisfaction and the men on the other hand in my opinion turned out beautiful.

Riccardo whom I painted tonight - explained this to me. It is the fact that painting women I feel like I will hurt their feelings unless I paint them pretty, so I try to make them pretty , and than make them look ugly as a result of the whole stress. This is so true.
I definitely feel adrenalin each time I paint someone live. Its a battle field in some way, I relax and do it ,but still there is the presence of the stress, - I hope to paint it in a way that will not hurt the feelings of my muse , and more so I hope that the muse will like it. I sometimes sacrifice wether I will like it. Last night istarted something so pretty ut different form my whole series so to not appear to eaasey idelved into Delphine and ruined the start.

Now being happy with this particular painting pust my mind at ease. I can go sleep and unwind. It is uncanny how every night I stop painting at midnight precisely. I must have angels who push me to sleep or my grandmother ghost, with various signs. Ether my baby wakes up precisely at midnight and I must stop painting, or there as tonight there are technical problems, and Riccardo, stopped being able too see me, as his battery on phone and computer went flat. Here is the baby too I can hear her form across the apartment.

Riccardo and I have experienced tons of Art fun, at all the hot art events about, form Istanbul biennale to the Italian one, and inbetween, as a part of a gang of art worshipers and firends.

Was fun to talk after years...

oh baby is crying, that's all for Tonght.

PARIS SPLIT SHOW / MLADEN

Having been commissioned to do this show by the French cultural Alliance, I thought about my relationship with France and its culture and came to realise it is Paris specifically which I am most connected to and Paris to me where the people who made Paris what it was.

The show however is in the institution in Split, where also I live and am painting the show physically, so I wanted to , also present this city in the show, which is why it has both the city names in the title.

To present Split I am also painting a number of portraits, but as this is the more physical, and present of the two cities in my actual life , my relation to it is physical, the portraits for this part of the concept are larger , more material, more tactile and opaque, the have a scent of paint which is stronger, they are the more monumental. These portraits as opposed trough skype -the way I painted the Paris part of the show, are painted in real life, with the muse in my studio, drinking, and listening to music, conversing and in my case dancing.

It has been a very long time since I painted a portrait of Mladen. We had just started dating and I invented a show in Split, to keep me here, to have something to do here, another purpose,  because I was not returning to London - because of Mladen. I was painting him in that phase, when the painting is part of my seductive dance. Well it worked and here I am many years later, in Split, where I stayed because of him, and where we where married and built our home. So I paint him as my Split, for he is probably the main character in my story of this city.

It was strange though . I gave him a time and date a while ago to prepare for this mentaly,  as I do to all my muses, to take it seriously, and we painted in the studio, with music on, drinks, son refusing to sleep and looking for attention in parts, but I found it unusual how different he was whilst I was painting him. The personality that reigns in the home , at work, with friends, no none of those where present. I was let into something new which I don't even know how to interpret. It was nice. It was nice to share with him the act of the painting, my thing, not just the personality I become when running the home, and  the him becoming the muse. Actually sailor man is  good looking, I was re discovering as I painted the familiar.

PARIS SPLIT SHOW/ GIADA DEL DRAGO

I have photos of Giada and I in, Venice looking pretty, with the breeze carrying our dresses posing on some kind of enormous second world war missile.

There are other photos of us, and we had encountered plenty of times without ever having so much had a conversation alone. I had painted once a man who was un-happily in love with Giada and I wondered what is this allure of hers, as at that time I knew of others pining away, as well .

But than we vanished to one another, until this random Facebook, lottery of contact, made us aware of each other's existence again, during what is clearly a different chapter in both of our lives  and perhaps a new chapter in our personalities as well.

Recently I embarked upon the experimental excursion of trying Giada's "life coaching " session via skype. I was delighted with the experience and found it very motivating, helpful, clarifying my own tangles and helping me organize my head and work. Her positive personality surprised me. And her coaching helped me get on with my PARIS SPLIT exhibition, get my priorities straight and confidence to make the step further, look for ways to get the show to Paris .

Having become so involved in this Paris-Split  of mine, of helping to realise it, I felt like she belongs in the show.

To some extent I wanted  her to experience the being painted in my way which she called "channeling", as I paint in conversation, which can be therapeutic to the muse in some way, looking very little at my painting, letting the energy of the muse flow from the muse, via the computer, into me, and out of my hand on the paper in colour, and to let her hopeful enjoy it .

However we ended up painting form 945-to midnight. That is a long time. And to start the painting looked older than she is perhaps, and now that I looked at it, she appears much younger. So I painted a person form older into a younger one, which is quite odd, for people don't tend to change age so much during the painting.

Without revealing any private details of the cinematic saga of her life,  Giada I discovered is a rare type of person, the kind I think I only have met a small number of in this life time, and painting her and having her share her life was indulgent almost. My eyes must have been huge like those of people in the caves trillions of years ago when they listened to the stories of the travellers, skype being our modern fire , but I could not get enough. Which ever way the story flipped , it continued to be fascinating. This is why it took me ages to paint her, I was concentrating on the conversation, but also subconsciously maybe I did not want  it to be over so quickly.

The adventures, the happening, the work, the travel, the languages and ideas and enormous changes she undertook in her life, courage to stop and change and start something completely different many times, It was quite amazing, inspiring, and really surprising to see how many different things one can do well, if they go for it all the way ,with all of their passion.



This exhibition other than allowing my to re-kindle friendships which where kind of frozen in time, has allowed my to discover new people.

I am more than grateful for the engagement of all the muses who had the generosity to participate and open them self's up, their world, and allow someone to look at them and give them an interpretation.

And this painting of Giada you can see once I finish its background..

PARIS- SPLIT SHOW / KZENYA OUTENDOT

Paris was my revenge.

In this instance. St. Martins college refused to let me do the student exchange year in the Accademie  des Beaux Artes in Paris, which was my plan. Instead, with the rest of the students, I had to think up "an exterior project"- Any way of putting my art out side of college.
A frieind printed her work in black and  white on  A4 paper and glued it to lamp posts in London around college. I went to Paris, convinced the manager of an alternative gallery  space on Rue Rivoli to give me a show.
 It was my revenge to the S.t Martins tutors. That was to be my first solo show in a gallery space. The first taste of being an artist, in the world, outside college. But more importantly , I started a collaboration with Kzeniya.

We planed a perfomance and had for the occasion invented the most complex, genius , paper stage, and audience holding apparatus, which held the heads of our viewers in place one by one, very uncomfortably close to one another, and by the end of the performance the stage was ripped and disintegrated, thrown out of the windows, to create once space with the audience and the performers mixed in together to become the protagonists.  It had never been seen before or since. We where a hit, in the Paris art events that month.

Getting to the show was hilarious, after we got of the London train, the painting could not fit into any taxi in Paris other than a type of limousine.

Kzeniya brought Marina K. to Paris with us to assist us, and I just could not understand than that this girl was coming becosue " she loves Paris so much she just needs an exscuse to go, any excuse".

We had lots of adventures that weekend. Having been very organised Kzeniya booked her hotel, via the internet, form London, and it turned out to be- who the hell knows where , and far from our show. She even got lost having taken a walk out of the hotel one evening, and had a very surreal expirence with a man called Angel, who spoke Russian her mother tongue,  and who helped her find her hotel in the middle of the night, and dissapered afterwards.



Kzenya and I met at the international students day at St .Martins college. She was fresh from Ukraine, and I somehow ended up there even tough I had been living in England for 8 years.  I yearned for international after living in a very English only, small village all those years.

We both ended up studying design for performance at the end of the foundation year at St. Martins, but the next year I retuned to my Fine Art roots and she remained in theatre. I don't know how we ended up woring on this project, I suppose we just wanted to do something together.
And than we had Paris.

What is funny is that  Kzeniya  more than a decade later, Kzeniya has just moved to live in Paris with her family!

She had no idea of that than..

80 portraits around the Art World / Ettore Bossi

This project is about the people of our time, working in our time, in the international art scene.
I am using the randomness of social technology , suggestions and common contacts, to choose and contact muses for the project,
Utiising the internet filiming / medistisation/ projection ,
to paint
an analogue portrait of what is essentially a digital projection,
 which I am recieving form the screen,
live,
or as good as live is,
 or as relevant as live is now a days.

And yet this technology affects the colours I see, the picture I am taking and the conversation I am having, too loud, too quiet , delayed or even fragmented.

I mean the whole thing crashed tonight, the phones run out of electricity , his skype did not work so we used facebook measanger video, which did not work in my computer,  which in turn forced me to paint him from the smallest possible image from the phone, and  I could not hear him until I added ear plugs , as if I was painting a tiny dwarf with a appropriate size volume.

The technology affects the expirence, sonically, visually changing colors, and time wise, there is a lot of time lost in all the technological trying to synchronise, meet, adjust to one another,  every time I paint using the internet.

But it also cuts the time of going somewhere, having to tidy my studio, provide enough vine or food for muse . You just turn on, fidget for ages, talk paint and are over.


Now that the technological part is over, I 'd like to say it was a genuinely interesting expirience painting Ettore.
Your essentially buying a cat in the bag, when approaching unknown people to pose for a portrait, right?
Well we got on quite well. There is a lot a painter can learn from the muse, about the muse, and useful technical knowledge. I had no idea for example that in the 50s, they used to glue paper paintings on to canvass to make them last longer and be durable. I know that the framers Lorcan o neil gallery used in Rome and who became the framers who  framed my work most, glued my huge paper works to canvassed and it looked pretty good.
Perhaps I should find out how do to it, for I love painting on paper .

Ther whree many themes, around art I enjoyed deicussing,  looking forwards to the next session, and drawing Ettores Eyes and nose.

THE PARIS SPLIT SHOW / LUCIA SANCHEZ BARRACHEA

Tonight Lucia Got stuck in the attic with no phone putting away christmass things.
There was just Lucia Christmas and spiders.

Any way I had no idea, where she vanished,  so I improvised her eyes, from her facebook,onto her head, which I had painted live at the previous skype session, as she sat in the garden.

Its tough to get us two together any way. She the argeninian, I met in London, but had paris with, now lives in mexico married to a Parisian and we have the same amount of kids to stop us planning things easily.


Marina took me to Paris as a birthday surprise for my 20th I think  birthday,  and we arrived also to Lucia's 20th birthday who was living and interning in Paris in some grand fashion house.  Had a girley time. And went to Disney land. And had melted cheese and croquer monsieur..

We painted via skype with babies limting out time. She shouted at her various servants like queen mother. It was all so different form our Paris ,than, but a fresh wham bam of energy, and of fun was present. So nice to meet after all these years. Magic started flickering in the croners of her eyes and static in the hair, and id say it was good to meet again, we should do this more often, and do something aobut this magic thing to harness it.

I love thiis painting.

THE PARIS SPLIT SHOW / SAM COX

Sam Cox and I and Nina all sat together in the French class. They where good at French grammar and I at the speaking.
We went to Paris with the art class at A- levels ,aged 17, with our art and literature teachers , form King Edwards ,Lichfield, England.

All has changed so drastically since that  I had to add where the trip started.

Sam and I had not seen in ages, spoken in years, but the Paris we had was our first Paris. Mine in any case. We explored Monmart , bought Paris boxer shorts for our boy firends back home and where charmed by the pot smoking class mate who was away there with us. Had a crush on him in Paris, we both decided, tonight a million years after. And got punished for the teachers catching him and the joint with us in the room, bad girls. haha. I forgot that part.

Sam is in Mexico tonight, and I am in Split ,and we where proper dear friends in England than, competing who could hold out longest against shawing ones legs.

But paris. Ah the old market with the second hand things. That was where I blew all the money ,coming back to England dressed like I was a 70s thing. There was feeding the famous delicious so called camembert to pigones because it was disgusting. And almost getting fine every time we sat on the grass of the French parks.


We spoke trough skype, Sam drinking water as she got some holiday poisoning in south mexico, and I the wine, painting her as we shared .  Than we spoke some French just because.

PARIS SPLIT SHOW / ANNA CAMERAC

Anna and moi, go back to the boarding school in Whem, I used to sleep in her bed so I could visit my boyfriend and she used to sleep in my house so she could escape the school at weekends. It was a very instant friendship , the kind you meet- and are friends always.

Anna and I had Paris together once , we where both students she at the Sorbonne in Paris and I at St Martins in london. There was a party in the house  of one of the St martins students in East London, and I got talking to some guy who was studying film from Dusseldorf. We talked about Paris for ages. We talked about Paris so much, that on the spur of the moment ,inspired by the warm London night and the happy party we decided to go to Paris that morning.
We went home got a passport and met at the Victoria station on the buss to Paris.
The was no romance intended.
Once we arrived, I kind of thought what the heck am I doing here with this polite but stranger guy. I called Anna and said, Anna ,I am in paris, can I stay with you?


Anna hosted me . Showed me what the French eat, apple pure and pancakes. And I spent my days at the louvre falling in love with Egyptian sculptures whilst she was studying.


After at least a decade we met over skype to paint two nights ago. Still the instant for ever friendship is there.
She was in Champagne, drinking tons of champagne and I in Split drinking the vine, and we painte and talked. And it was amazing.

I love this project form making me contact people I love.

The PARIS SPLIT SHOW / MARINA KURIKHINA

Marina is one of my protagonists in Paris. We became friends of the train to Paris from London at 5 am. She rushed in from the Russian war and peace ball with the period hair do and perfume, and I just almost missed the train to my show in Paris because my paintings could not fit into any London taxi apart form the 1983 London cab make.
We where 19 years old than.
Kzeniya Outendot, brought Marina to our performance in Paris Rue Rivoli, because Marina loved Paris so much she just needed an excuse to go there ,and  Kzenya and my  performance was enough for her to come help and just be.

Than at croque  monsieur at breakfast in Paris under the sunshine she asked me you believe in magic? And what do you think I replied? Of course I believe in magic and magic Paris was for us than and each time we visited it together after.

The birthday celebration at Disneyland with fashion designer Lucia Sanchez, the group show I had at pompidou museum, and her birthday, with Tarrek and Raffaella there.. Ahh Marina was my main character in Paris. I cant imagine Paris without Marina.


Today at her 9 am Los Angeles time and my 6 pm Croatia time we painted her for the show. It was nice. The way its nice to see family you have not in ages and you love no matter how much time passes. X

THE PARIS SPLIT SHOW / IVANA SERENCES

I have just painted Ivana S. The sailor woman. Oh god. I have forgotten that with her I can drink as much wine as a pirate can.
The painting is one of these huge ones, just for fun, for the sakes of it, maybe for the show. In the end all the paintingS which are for the fun of them selfs are better than all my serious planned works.  I think its aobut 200cm x 120 cm oil on paper. Ahh good night.