3 brand new old works, 2004 , found here in MEIN WELT.

 

I had lately discovered older works, one has been already posted earlier last week and now these 3 here.  I never forgot then, as a matter of fact I knew very well where they were, in the deepest part of a closet I have here… and for some reason that painting of the man training the dog has never left my mind… but it has been many years since I didn’t see them.  They are from 2004.  The one of the girl with the German shepherd I know very well the reason I had it hidden, I am ashamed of they way I painted her face, I don’t know how I lost so much control and made her so ugly.  I will try to fix her face one day…. one day.  ……… and for the last, the fish, an Angel Fish or as we call it here, Acara Bandeira, I used to breed this specimen and I still love these fishes, now I am focusing more on smaller specimens but with the same origins, the Amazon Black River.  These works were made in a time when I was having very similar feelings I am having now about my work, painting and art in general.  I need a rest from myself and my work, it can take one day or one year or one decade, who knows? Who cares ? I want something else my work has offered.  But every day I wake up feeling like to paint but don’t know how or what. These paintings were made exactly when I created the Mein Welt concept for my life style.  So all this feeling about getting tired of myself is never a symptom of depression or any kind of lack of excitement. It is part of the creative process. It has highs and lows.  I thought it would be nice to share these 3 works with you. Hope you enjoy it.

Washed and Cleaned – Caio Fern, acrylic on canvas 2012.

Let me start the way I usually start all my posts :
I woke up early today…. and oh, I hate this photo.

Washed and cleaned. This is how I fell and am.
Again a fast painting. I am painting faster and it is as raw as always was.

hummm, what else ? ah , I have listened a lot the Dinosaur Jr albums: Bug and Green Mind. From times to times I like to get into these albums again. But I don’t think it has affected my work recently.
I have prepared really great diners, I must to say. It hasn’t affected  my work neither. Or at least I think it hasn’t. Who knows ?

well… I am passing by important internal modifications and working to improve myself. This is the only thing that has really had an influence on my work.
Washed and Cleaned is about this.
The term Washed and Cleaned is for the initiated ones. I hope you know what I am talking about, even because I believe that have been clear.

this is it, see you.

Personal contradictions about this… Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas.

how  can feelings be so contradictory about a work ?

for many times during I was painting it I got exited about and worked hard to make things happen…. other times I was exploding in total lack of patience and completely stopped to believe on it.

I am staring at this on the wall and still have the most divided feelings about.
Sincerely, this work is so well behaved and so predictable under my expectations that I feel like to go out to the street and punch someone with it to see if the blood spots will make the painting better or at least ruin it completely.

oh, yes, I like it… but… no, it isn’t what I need/want to paint now.
I mean… it doesn’t go beyond what I’ve done, it is a good work but didn’t add anything new in my life, any new territory fed me with any new kind of nutrient.
What I have inside me now isn’t there… what I need isn’t there too.
I do hope other people like it, I can understand as people have different needs from each other…. maybe this work can help me in the future… then I will be able to appreciate it without having to give or suck all my energy from the plots, spots, colors, textures and cuts.

Caio Fern, acrylic on canvas, 2012, fast and clean.

Do I have any control ? nope.
Did I mean to make a so polite and well behaved painting ? na-ha.
………… even so I like this work, I like it on the wall, it has personality and a good presence even being so polite , clean, well behaved, almost doesn’t even look mine. hahahah.
I prepared this canvasses last night and woke up very early to start this painting. I finished much before I expected.  Fast and clean.
hope you enjoy.

FUSSY, Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas, fussy fussy fussy fussy !!!!!!!!!

 

…so these many ways to deal with myself by different angles and …….. and all these things passing by my mind, ideas, and arguing with possibilities that didn’t even start to exist. It is all flesh and getting rid of it is a promise of internal freedom. to get rid of flesh is a way to get rid of yourself and the world that raised you . I mean… people say ” I am faithful to myself, I have my own personality and my own way to deal with things”. It is an illusion, you are only a poor effect of what the world did with you since you were inside you mother’s uterus. Being faithful to yourself? Yourself doesn’t even exist. All the real existence is found when you deny yourself and stop to do what the fleshy world conditioned tells you to do. I think like that, I like these things, I feel this, I am like that, I am this…. no you’re not. What you call you doesn’t even exist, is a lie, a disposable invention of the shallowest dimension of this world. Real existence is so far from ego…. But I don’t see that it is necessary to get free from individuality to be able to get rid of ego… one thing is completely different of the other… different natures and origins. I don’t know, I am only painting my painting. So today I worked my head in slices and different angles and positions. Sometimes when I paint my work gets very fussy, I pay attention on minimum details till I think it is expressing the strongest way possible… expressing what? I never know for sure. This work may look abstract for an untrained eye but is very figurative, I made all this by observation and I took care of so many details… it is a very fussy work ( I like this word “fussy”, I learned it now looking at the dictionary, English language has some cute words, this is one of then ). I didn’t know what I was doing …. only doing it till reach a level of intensity that could make all my thoughts shut up. I think it is beautiful…. My head + face in 6 different angles ( only for your pleasure, baby ). Lately I have listened too much instrumental classic music, mainly Mozart,  and sonic youth albums, specially daydream nation from 1988. It has been more than 20 years I listen  this album and I am so annoyed with all the vocals… not even talking about the lyrics… I Liked it on the first 15 years listening, now it makes no sense, is just ridiculous … but the instrumental part is so beautiful, all the noises and distortions, guitars and drums… perfect. So I have only focused on this. I think that listening Mozart and sonic youth has affected my work in the studio. This work is maybe telling me that, among other things. More and more I have thought too about spiritual developing and the contrast it has with the world, culture, psychism and the myth of personality. You know it is basically all my work is about, right ? But I spend hours everyday only thinking about these things and I can never talk about. Wellllll… God bless you have a great new week ahead.

I lost my nostrils many times. Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas.

I finished this work few hours ago….
Started yesterday and had only few hours to work… I had 3 or 4 hours to finish the first part, the top one was the only thing I was sure that wanted to paint, it is a head looking up…. simple and small… right ? Right. I thought again that would finish that in few minutes. It happens that I had trouble painting the first nostril, when I finished and went to paint the second one… wow, I lost the first !!!! I wasn’t able to put the both nostrils one by the side of the other…. was always losing one. It took me a long time to find a way to paint one and do not lose the other. I don’t understand why or how… it just happened. The rest of the head and neck was easy and fast.
The both heads below I painted now… it just doesn’t fit. I mean: the head on the top and the heads below in profile are two different paintings. The idea this morning was to make  these heads match perfectly with the top one creating one single object, strong and solid. I got this idea that wanted something solid last night, I was observing the top head and it was so strong, solid, like a rock. So all the rest of the painting was supposed to be like that. But this morning the colors in the sky and the light coming into my studio were completely different and I naturally saw different colors. I paint what I see, I am a very conventional painter and proud of it.
When I said to myself that would stop to paint and finish the work I stepped back and got very disappointed. I didn’t know what to do or how to solve all the things I didn’t like. The work almost went to the trash can. It took me a while looking to it till start to get used and maybe even like it. I don’t know, I will let it hanged on my wall for a couple of days. Maybe I change something, maybe I throw it away… or just leave it as it is.

 

Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas, LIVE FLOWS AND I WEAR MY FAVORITE FLANNEL SHIRT

 

Do you know that flannel shirt you have, everybody does , and you believe that life would be much worse without it ?
Sure I have my favorite flannel shirt. It has my favorite colors, blue, green and white. When I wear that I feel complete. It is so me. Do you know what I mean? I it perfect. It makes me feel like I was always supposed to be. I get more confident, strong, macho, handsome. hahahah. I even get more honest when I am wearing it. And free…. don’t forget about feeling free.
So I had to paint that, I decided to paint it on Friday and did…. but I took me till Sunday to go back to studio and keep the work. I painted for two hours on Sunday night and more two on Monday morning. This is a cute little painting, I think it is going to be hanged on the charming wooden wall of my tiny tea room.
During the process I had many doubts about what direction to go…. I decided to do not decide…. only let the painting solve it by itself. You know, pictorial values are able to offer all the solutions, you only need to let the colors and plots to speak. Yes, Lady, I am going to obey you and do what you are telling me to do. Lady ? Yes, don’t forget the painting to me is Pintura.. it is female genre in my language.
So making love with art isn’t just an expression to me… it makes sense, it is a complicated love affair, intricate relationship of years and years. Maybe now you can understand why I argue and fight with painting sometimes but never give up and never stop to love it… we Latinos have too passionate relationships.

During the time I was working on it… and the time I wasn’t too…. I realized that for the last months I have prayed to God for taking from my life all my enemies and the people that could cause me any kind of harm. I am impressed of how many friends I lost recently. They just went way for no specific reason. wow. We think the ones around us want our good…. sometimes it is a mistake.
I have thought too about how life sometimes force us to repeat the same acts of the past. Well life, you are wrong, if the acts of past were good I wouldn’t be here now. And even if they were good at the time. What is the reason to stay alive if you are going to repeat everything ? I believe the only reason to keep living is the chance to do things in different ways and never stop to experiment. Maybe this is what this painting is expressing, I was too influenced by these thoughts between brush strokes. But I didn’t mean to illustrate what I was thinking, I only painted and let it flows…… as I said… I let all the decisions for the painting to solve by itself. It was spontaneous and free.

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Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas, LIVE FLOWS AND I WEAR MY FAVORITE FLANNEL SHIRT

Are you tough enough to be a painter, fancy boy? Winter lives in me. Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas

The city is a heavy concrete block made for a sub-race human type developed in one whole century by massonary-illuminatti-C.I.A-new world order-UN… call as you wish, to survive while moves the economy of the country that produces goods for first world countries at the other side of the world. Is it a very well succeeded concentration camp at the most lost corner of the planet with 20 millions of citizens-prisoners working, producing more than any person can get, for low payment and don’t have proper conditions of work, never complaining because this is the only thing local schools teach. You bet your soul, darling. Sao Paulo…. and thousands of people from everywhere arrive here every single day looking for opportunities, what kind of world is this where there are people thinking Sao Paulo is a good alternative to survive? They are volunteers joining in a concentration camp. Welllll… I didn’t even intend to say anything like this. Let me start again: The city is a heavy concrete block, grey grey grey, the only reality incessantly presenting itself want you this or not. I love winter… God !!!! I love winter. Arrested in this city the cold winds with drizzle and rain come as a bless… I am not kidding, I feel like to cry just because I am feeling alive… it is so rare, happens few times a year when the temperature comes down and I can breath. So I walk to my work by the sidewalks not being bothered by people because I am the only one waking under the rain. The stink reality of urban pollution and concrete dust is eliminated with no mercy by the drops from heaven that cleans the street…. the extremely narrow plats/flower beds and rare trees on the sidewalks lift its earth fragrances and as I am with the umbrella opened very near my head only able to look to the floor and avoid the city around,  I can pretend that live in a pretty place with people that weren’t culturally and genetically developed by multi-national corporations. I open myself to life, yes I do, with no shame, but in silence, I let the colors of the winter come into my chest. I become a scissor cutting personal boundaries of memories, hates, shame and pain. Freedom is a internal experience usually raised by hope, imagination and denying. Here the nature is funny, it doesn’t follow rules… I mean, it is winter but different specimens of plants are in different seasons… So there are a couple of tress in bloom, purple, pink and red flowers smiling among drizzle before to follow on the sidewalk and make my day while I am walking with my dark green beautiful friend umbrella. All the colors I used  and worked on this painting are in my everyday life walking on the street. I only noticed this when was finishing it. I got so touched to see my work expressing so well my life, my feelings…. I mean… so many hard years working on paintings and all of sudden I am able to see myself that way.. this is the most hyper-realistic self-portrait a man can do in this world. I feel as my life has a meaning. So many years not sure of what I was doing, with torment, anxiety and even worse things and a painting in a rainy day gives the direction showing I wasn’t so wrong painting for 13 years. What can I say ? Thank God, for all the time you allowed me to dedicate for painting, thank you for talent, thank you for being able to get art supplies when I didn’t have money for food,  thank you for the inspiration, thank you for do not make me a mediocre bastard that follows trends and kiss art world people’s ass. Thank you for have called me. I woke up this Thursday morning not so early. Didn’t have much to do except personal hygiene routine and feed the pets. After I nice piece of vegetables pie, a wonderful cup of cinnamon-apple tea and a cup of green tea I decided to go to studio, I had prepared the canvasses the night before as intended to work on the next day… But I looked to the time and realized I had to leave to the job in four hours. hmmm…. maybe I start to paint… probably not. Maybe yes…. ok, I will spend four hours painting. My experience with my own work tells that in four hours I can start and finish a painting. So I had time…. Four hours later I had only finished the eye up right. hahahah. But what an eye !!!!! Rembrandt would be so jealous of me, hahah, good for him he is dead. I arrived from job in early evening, 7:00, and went straight to the studio, sure, was very exited. Hours after hours, painting here, cutting there… I allowed the painting to lead all my gestures and intentions. I didn’t think about right or wrong… only thought about… well… I don’t remember. The painting was finished at 3:00 pm sharp. I didn’t have any break… except the times I went to the bathroom or the times the dogs came to the closed door and started to cry and beg to open it. I opened they came inside sniffing everything, annoying me for making me waist time and then went away to pee somewhere in the house or to bite and spoil some object leaving me alone. ufffa. As a matter of fact I remember what I thought for one second while I was painting. It is about talent for painting. The truth is that the most talented people I met , the virtuosi ones were all very mediocre and shallow. They know very well what they do, how to have things done, how to reach that effect or that texture. And at the end you look to their works and ask yourself : so what? The real talent for painting isn’t about technique but about persistence. Painter is by nature absolute not a quilter. Because this is painting… it is doing it over and over again… trying, trying never stopping till reach a level of expression that is able to be faithful to your needs. Sometimes it can take four hours to finish an eye that looks like it was made in ten minutes…. sometimes it takes decades to produce one really good work… who cares? Quitter and cowards in general don’t paint… they usually write some conceptual excuse for their aesthetical failure convincing other cowards like then that don’t have courage to face themselves and produce something for real. Painting, doesn’t matter the subject or style, it is always about having to face yourself the most direct way and dealing with it with no formulas, only the way you are able to do it at the moment.

Because painting has nothing to do about adding paint on a surface as people are taught. Painting is about the plot, and it requires a level of internal commitment that most part of the so called artists today and people in general are deadly scared to do.

The nature of the “making” painting is exactly this…. all the process is about you having to force to find solutions for elements you aren’t sure about what it really is and what is going to happen if you “solve” this puzzle. You are unsure from the very beginning to the end and even so you try harder and harder to go beyond. Then people don’t understand why painters are able to paint for many years with any recognition and never give up… while artists of other medias usually give up after few years having no proper feedback. Sure, all the other medias offer faster solutions to the artists… let’s say they get spoilt. But painting is tough and makes you tougher. What in life can scare a painter ? What can the art world do with a painter that will make him/her give up ? Nothing. Real painters are so used to try hard and never give up that there is absolute any evil this world can offer strong enough to make us stop. One single painter, with all its wide opened fragility and solitude is stronger than the entire world together. Don’t you see it? The world with all its cruelty and long time can’t stop a painter, we always carry on with our burdens and think it is glorious. So here I am in this concentration camp…. since I was a kid I had the entire world with its power and corporations conspiring against my life, my mind, my freedom and my soul. But every single day I survive and prove that God made me stronger than all then together. I am untouchable. I live the way I want, I produce the art I want, the way I want, when I want, how I want, if I want, where I want, ….and I tell all then to go back to the hell they came from… and they obey me…because they live in this world they built and it is a hell… but I live in Glory, safe, healthy, producing and happy. I live in this concentration camp but I have the world under my feet. I am a painter, and you get out of my way. by the way… my work is not for sale. ——————————————- ohhh, no no, wait !!!!!! I was almost forgetting: Lately I have worked this dark green and my favorite painter, a very beautiful girl told me she is very into dark green. yey!!!!!! I would ad this dark green on the painting anyway… but let’s just say… I did it to impress you, baby. hahahah. Are you impressed ? oh yeah… here comes the purist asshole saying: “”did you do this to impress a girl? you are not a serious painter”". Do you know what happens with people of the art world that take themselves seriously? They die as mediocre as they born. … and burn in hell. have a nice weekend and happy Friday !!!!!! I love you all, hahahah !!!!!

GRUN GREEN PUMPERNICKEL CUCKOO – Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas

it is written ” GRUN GREEN PUMPERNICKEL CUCKOO “. These are things-objects I love about my little life.

 

Caio Fern, 2012, PINE TREE – acrylic on canvas

 

 

 

 

 

 

You have no idea how much I love  the cold days here. So I have been eating pinhão ( a nut from a local pine tree named Araucaria,native from the south of South East and Souht on Brazil )  and enjoying my colorful thick socks watching movies and sitcoms ( Bewitched, my favorite ever ).
These are my winter nights, fog in the streets, sometimes drizzle and cozy activities with tasty food indoors. I was born to this.
And what could  make it all even more perfect ? No, not a hot woman… it would be nice at first couple of fucks, then she would start to complain about the house, complain about the food, complain about the movies, complain about Samantha Stevens !!!!! noooo!!!!! Complain about me… and more about me and more and more….next you know her body would be hidden in the garage.
Oh no, wait !!!!! I am a church boy now… nothing of this can happen anymore.
So to make this season even more perfect only leaving the city and going to the mountains among pine trees and going to the woods with a good couple of German Shepherds. Damn… I live in a concrete city with Lhasa Apsos… something is very wrong here.
As the painting universe is the only place where I can make my dreams come through I decided to on my next work include the perfect German Shepherd I always have in mind.
this work I tried so much to work some feelings and situations I lived recently… not that I think was well succeeded on this…. no , it went to a different direction… not so different, but I intended to go deeper into some issues….
How can I do it with visual art and do not get illustrative or do not get abstract?
This is my personality, I am direct and always go towards the target, I never look to the sides. When I go to supermarket to by a cabbage, I get into the place, go till where the cabbages are displayed and leave. I don’t even look to the sides, if has a huge promotion of something I love and I have money for that… I don’t even realize, I am very methodic about everything in my life…. wow, you should see me in my house.
So that is the painting that naturally comes form me, it is direct and objective even when I totally lose myself.
How can I get a way to express what I need so much using images but not getting obvious as an illustrator or poetic too subjective as an abstract painter ?

During this painting I started to say to myself things like :
- Painting isn’t tolerant, it won’t accept pictorial excuses, you will have to make it happens, stop to be a lazy ass and work hard on it.
- Pictorial values must to be able to solve all the issues of the painting, don’t you dare to start to cut here and there running away from responsibility. Don’t start to get anxious and find obvious solutions as taking a larger brush and covering all.

Welllllll….. I didn’t listen to myself :  Fuck you Me, who are you you are to tell my painting how to exist.

At the end I got satisfied with the result….. you know, painting a German Shepherd always makes me happy. How many of these dogs I have painted on the last 10 years ? Many.
I love to use green too…. and I love to work on this face… it was so frustrating for so many reasons… since the beginning this face frustrated me, but I loved to lose my patience and even so keep on it.
Face- dog-green…. this is my head at this moment.