homage
As an artist, one can be inspired by many things or people or an artist. For a long time, my hero was Robert Rauschenberg. I could get lost in flakes and edges of found footage he assembled. Since my move to Canada, I broke loose from collage. One afternoon I found myself with nose to window at Clint Roenisch art gallery in Toronto. The gallerist and artist where setting up the show. I had to keep patience until the opening. Shoes where placed side by side at the entrance. Bare foot, I walked over carpets and cardboard. Carefully avoiding objects that looked like bones, and plates of food. Etchings an paintings seemed to be singing on the walls. The artist was caring for his work, by connecting the art pieces with his guests. He was wearing Bhuddist clothes, had an Italian face with a karate ponytail. It worked, I found myself in a new dimension. In the drawings, energy lines connected, or just blurted out of portraits. “Can you see these energy lines?” I asked. “No”, was his reply. “I do spend hours a day to meditate.” And so it was, that Massimo Guerrera kept his secret of the unseen.
For the “Homage” group show, I selected two tree barks that I sanded inside and out. The tree was hit by lightening, one part is very light like cork. The inner part I primed and then made a painting in it with charcoal, pencil and acrylics. The end result is new, as it combines drawing, painting and sculpture. The shape is somehow comfortable. Your arm fits around it as the base rests on your hip.
