Visit my page on Saatchi Art:
To see my profile on Saatchi Art, click here.
I learned to paint from an award-winning Belgian painter, Simone Ruyters, who had learned her art from one of the most famous Belgian surrealists of her generation: Delvaux. Ruyters was well known in New York society in the 1960's (I was studying at Columbia University) and I was taken with the incisive portraits that had made her reputation and had led to several successful shows in major galleries. With her, I learned drawing and oil painting techniques.
To see my profile on Saatchi Art, click here.
I learned to paint from an award-winning Belgian painter, Simone Ruyters, who had learned her art from one of the most famous Belgian surrealists of her generation: Delvaux. Ruyters was well known in New York society in the 1960's (I was studying at Columbia University) and I was taken with the incisive portraits that had made her reputation and had led to several successful shows in major galleries. With her, I learned drawing and oil painting techniques.
1. Love and Pain: the passion of painting the developing world, from India to Peru
As my work for the United Nations took me to developing countries through the 1980s and 90s, I came back with sketches and photos of what I saw - the suffering, but also the beauty and dignity of the poor. Once I had more time (after 2004) I made large-size canvases and participated in over a dozen shows, mostly in Paris and Rome.
 |
| Haitians In a refugee campo oil on wood (130x90 cm with barbed wire applications) |
 |
| Displaced people in Darfur (Sudan) oil on wood (120x90cm) |
In 2008, all my paintings on that theme were shown, in a personal show called LOVE AND PAIN, held at IPSAR, the Portuguese Institute of Art in Rome.
 |
| The sniper (Afghanistan) - oil on wood (90x60 cm) |
You can see more of my paintings here
2. A Politically Incorrect View of the West:
I didn't stop with the Third World. When I looked at the West, I found myself attracted to what are (almost) caricatures of Western civilization - things like burlesque dancing, women begging in the subway after a show of pole dancing or women with red hats. The latter were shown in a personal show in Paris in 2007, at the Galerie Mona Lisa, on the Rive Gauche in Paris.
I didn't stop with the Third World. When I looked at the West, I found myself attracted to what are (almost) caricatures of Western civilization - things like burlesque dancing, women begging in the subway after a show of pole dancing or women with red hats. The latter were shown in a personal show in Paris in 2007, at the Galerie Mona Lisa, on the Rive Gauche in Paris.
 |
| In the Milano subway: pole dancer, oil on wood (90 x 60cm) |
3. Horses as Symbols of Power and Elegance - and how they are out of step with a modern urban environment
 |
| Urban Running Horse oil on wood (90x60 cm) |
These paintings celebrate the horse as a symbol of strength and beauty. In some of them, I've placed the horse in a deliberately mismatched environment: the modern city where he has no place, where his natural power and elegance is lost.
These paintings were successfully shown in two exhibitions, in Rome and in Sicily.
To view a sample, click here.