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.

Wild Life means a little yellow box. The Wisconsin- Bournemouth- São Paulo Connection.

So it means all started because I friend of mine sent a message from Wisconsin telling me about a deer who had died hit by a car in front of her house, the carcass was right on her front lawn and the county for weeks didn’t send anyone to take it from there.

Telling me this novel about how to make the county take a dead deer carcass from your lawn we talked a lot about the deer situation on the green state of Wisconsin. Go Packs !!!!!
It got in my mind and I pretty much had to start to paint , for some reason painting is a tool I use to talk to myself.
All the rest you saw on the earlier posts, for one month or more I have painted using the deer theme and writing about this particular experience : deer, painting, my life’s story.
It is funny, up there in the frozen Wisconsin comes news which touch me deeper than the facts surrounding my life here, in the hot tropics. And talking about tropics, I have tried to paint for four days… It is too hot to make any move, the canvasses has been prepared and all is in my mind, but when I get into my studio… ohh noooo… I only feel like to take an uber cold tea or fresh fruit juice. I am not complaining , it must to be an unconscious excuse to postpone the battle that is the act of painting for me . Ahhhhh… the frozen lands up north seem to be so tempting now.

Sometimes is the extremely opposite that is able to show the truth of us and open hidden understandings.  God bless the extremely opposite of our particular and earthly nature.

But the story doesn’t end here. This friend of mine, Sandy, insisted a couple of times ” Caio, here we don’t say Stag, we say Buck”.
Yes, it is right and I intend to make a ” Buck” painting one day, very soon. I want very much to do it as still have to dive deeper into this feeling.
But let me tell the Stag Story : As you know English isn’t my first or not even second language. Is it the third ? There was me, 2007, after have lived in London I started to travel by Great Britain till a girl invite me to live with her and her girl friend at her apartment in a lovely south shore little town named Bournemouth. I even got a two weeks job there in one of the dozens night clubs. The most expensive one named 2020, I got the black t-shirts and still wear it today, hahaha.
One day coming back from the beach I had to pass by the down town as it was the way to the apartment I was staying as guest when I looked to the floor and found an used little box of matches which you see the pictures on this post.
I read “stag”, well my English skills are only  good for surviving and at the time I decided to read all Tolkien’s work, starting by Silmarillion which I was reading exactly at the time, my idea was if my English sucks I will start to read this language by what everybody says that is very hard, hahahah, it didn’t help me at all, as you can see .
But  ”stag”, what is this?  Arriving at the apartment I took a dictionary and saw the meaning. That is the reason I chose to use this world.
Remember… here in Sao Paulo we have absolute anything related with the deer culture. It is completely an alien and exotic concept for the local life style. So if I had the necessity to paint because of this subject and the stories told me from North, I would use the word I was familiar with as my only personal experiences with deer are from Europe and England. Even the paintings I made in 2008 and 2009 portraiting deers are from models I saw and photographed there in the old land.
About this old box of matches, I took it with me all the way, it became my bookmark till today, started marking the pages of Silmarillion and all the books I have read since then. Yes, I have it by my side now and took these pictures a couple of days ago as I intended to post about, it would be hanged and glued on the painting I wrote the word Stag… but I decided to keep as a bookmark.
It is pretty, isn’t it?
——————–
the deer photo was taken by Sandy.

Stag, new version, by Caio Fern 2012, acrylic on canvas.

After a couple of days of this work on my wall I had to cut that green part you saw when I posted the other day. I couldn’t breath with that. After to cut the room lighted up and I was able to breath again , that was a huge weight I had to get rid of.  It wasn’t only for aesthetical reasons, it was much more because of the things that passed by my mind when I was painting. Now I feel free and released, as the hunted Stag was able to escape and win the people who tried to kill him and that situation.

I am sorry you you prefer the way it was before.

Maçã, Apfel, Caio Fern, acrylic on canvas. 2012.

you know …. bigger is the work, less it has to say, that is the reason today’s art market and art history has so much huge crap. Make it bigger, I used to listen when went to visit my friends in the art college. I heard a couple of art dealers saying the same. I want to paint the size I see… and I saw it very close so I painted my face the size it is in real life… except for the apple. hahahah…. I really needed it a bit bigger, but not so much. Is a beautiful apple and I love her. My lunch is going to be with her. I found a piece of raw canvasses here that must to be in among my studio stuff for at least  6 or 7 years. Is is exactly the same kind of canvasses I use all the time but pink. yes, pink, I won this from someone. Now I decided to paint over it. Last night I treated and let it to dry.  I liked when the cuts were made and the pink sides got exposed. I spent last night awaken staring to the painting I made yesterday, before this one here above. I wasn’t sure about that work yesterday when finished, now I am in loved with it .

Caio Fern, self portrait, acrylic on canvas – 2012.

yeah, again, very up set with the photo…. you know all the story. the painting has much more colors and it isn’t fair…. blah blah blah…… you know. But it isn’t fair at all to do not be able to show the painting the way it is.

aaahhhhhhh…….. this is only a self portrait.
I was a bit tired of composing and creativity so decided to take a small piece of canvasses and do a direct simple self-portrait. only for the pleasure to paint.
I had this “idea” last night… can you believe I went to sleep and spent all the time dreaming about painting this ? every single brush stroke. hahahah. what an exiting dream. hahaha. So I woke up, had a nice breakfast and started to paint…. soon I am going to work so I got to post it as fast as possible.
the face grew and I lost control, as always, but I like it , it is the opposite of everything I’ve done lately… sure I love what I’ve painted… all the work of this years and last year too… I do. I am happy with my production a lot and intend to get deeper into it…. but it is good to take a day only for express myself in a different way… not less sincere or true.
All the colors of paint I used were the same I do expect white… I took my best white paint and mixed with white pigment in dust…. but I didn’t blend very well that is the reason you see the “pox” on the skin… I loved this texture. I don’t know how you see it by photo but here in front of me it is giving the sensation of pure skin.

see you.

I found this work yesterday in my attic.

I found this work yesterday in my attic.
it is from 1999 or 2000 or 2001.

let’s be formal as I like so much: Caio Fern, acrylic on canvas, 1999 or 2000 or 2001.

Paint what must to be painted and shut up.

so since last Thursday I have tried to paint, and nothing… I went to studio for three days and only stared the blank canvasses…. On Monday I decided to grow courage and start…. all the time I touched the canvasses immediately came down a feeling that all was wrong and I shouldn’t do it. I started to hate to paint, again, and stopped to do it for one hour or two. Then I felt remorse and started again, stopped again after 20, or 30 minutes…. So much rage and furious moments. I can’t explain. It was like the panting begin for do not be made. on and on for hours…… Sunday very late of night I decided to cut the canvasses in many different forms , what was a huge painting became this small cross….. Nothing about cross or religion, I am fundamentalist Christian, I really don’t like to produce images and symbols about Christianity…. it is for religious people. I have nothing against then but isn’t my thing. Even so when I look to this cross…. it moves me, is stronger than me. I don’t know how you see by photo but here in front of me it is physically dominating, even being so small… it has 40 centimeters or so. I only cut the canvasses trying to eliminate …all I did. I am passing by a moment where I feel exhausted painting, I don’t know if I am going to keep doing it. I know I have in my studio one piece of canvasses already prepared for the next… and maybe this is it. I finish the work and take a little rest. for the last months I have produced a lot. Only in 2012 it has been 16 works… it drained me. well… let’s see… I am not in charge, I only paint the paintings that arrive and demand to be done. As you know, I do consider it God’s gift and will and I don’t want to disappoint Him. What I am going to do with this cross painting ? I think at the end it was Lord’s way to say painting is my cross and I must to carry it and don’t complain anymore. Paint what must to be painted and shut up. Ok. Just to say, painting demands too much from me and I complain a lot about this. Even so it is stronger than me and I do it anyway being extremely grateful for this. I always remember that painting was the last on my ” to do ” list when I was younger, I absolute didn’t want to become a painter. All I thought about painting was that it wasn’t necessary to be done, to exist, it was irrelevant for a man of the 21 century. I had that narrow minded contemporary-new-media-art mentality. Even so painting chose me and didn’t leave my life even when I tried so many times to get rid of it. I spent the last 13 years trying to find excuses to stop to paint, and I found many very good excuses to do it. Even so I can’t. At the end painting is the only activity on earth that gives me any kind of satisfaction. And the only one that makes me feel miserable when I fail. Even being so hard and painful. I hate to paint and love to finish a good painting. But there is absolute nothing, nothing on this world that brings me pleasure, satisfaction or any thing of this nature… only painting… and going to church… but church isn’t something produced by my hands… is something I receive. Painting doesn’t come from me, is inspired from beyond…. but it is made by my hands… so gives me a personal gratification. I don’t understand, I don’t even know what I am saying. I only know that when I say things related to my faith and reasons to paint it makes more and more people stand back as all this is absolute not convenient, fashionable or even accept by society, it is ridiculous to everybody and they laugh of me. But it is good isn’t it? … making people back off and despite me for who I am and what I believe. It makes me be left alone and free. It is written on the Bible that everyone that confess Jesus name as its Saviour will suffer prejudice and persecution…. and this is what I’ve done all this time, producing art for a world that doesn’t want to see what I do and talking about Jesus all the time for audience that is cynic and atheist. Good.

For no one. ….acrylic on canvas by Caio Fern 2012.

Caio Fern, acrylic on canvas 2012 – for whom ? para quem ? :s

If on the earlier painting I was not spontaneous following the plan from the first to the last brush stroke, on this one finished today I totally lost myself. When I finished it was hateful to me, ugly and a big fail, now I love this work. It looks like an MC5 song from the “Kick out the jams” album… hum… I should listen this album again, it has been a couple of months I don’t. Well… at least this is how it looks to me now.
I have faced doubts about what way to take on my work….. it is getting too complicated, different of all the visual simplicity it used to have. Both are intense, strong and sincere….. I just don’t know what is going to happen and how I am going to deal with it.
I really don’t want to take the control, only allow the painting keep being itself as a “noble free spirit female” must to be.

Other thing is about : “For whom have I painted for ?” hahaha.
Really.
Who likes what I am doing ?
Not the typical hipster always looking for the next trend.
Not the people that likes fine art and “well painted oil paintings” with conventional images.
Not the old typical academics with head in wax that worth ship abstract painting and that second half 20th century hegemony of NY-London cheap conceptual art.
Not the “kids” and nerds crazy for tumblr-devian fantastic-impressive illustration.
Doesn’t matter how many people exist on this world interested in art… it seems that I have painted for no one.

Caio Fern , acrylic on canvas 2011 and about influences

So since Thursday night I have been in my studio preparing the canvasses for this painting.
…….well….. yesterday I spent all the time experimenting different kinds of green, only this.
For 3 weeks I have gone to the MASP ( a traditional museum of art here in Sao Paulo ) only to see again a Lucas Cranach, the Younger painting (1515 – 1586 ) . As a Matter of fact the curator had the brilliant decision to hang this painting by the side of a Hans Hobein and a really wonderful Frans Halls… and it all with a comfortable bench right in front of it. I don’t need to say it became my second home now.
I posted here the picture of the Cranach’s painting that is at the MASP. Among the 3 painters, side by side, is the worse painting…. but is beautiful and the green background has seduced me deeply.
The composition of the 3 painting side by side is great because has this work on the left, in the middle the Holbein with its typical blue background and on the right Frans halls with a work were a grey-green ton predominant. So it all fits and makes me feel like to paint my life with blue and green, my favorite colors by the way.
All these days I have looked for an excuse to use green and blue , but as here is spring and I work at a place with a beautiful garden I think green has built a warmer nest in my chest.
If you look to my painting will notice under the chins and near the noses was a little background, on the photo it looks black but is green, not the same ton of the cranach’s painting, much darker, but was made by the inspiration I had with this painting.
Lately I had thought a lot about Aleijadinho, a Brazilian sculptor from the 18th century that had a huge influence on my work when I was starting to paint. I forgot about this but for one month or so it all came to my mind and I notice that still today his influences appear on my work. My paintings are based on self portrait and my eye is very similar the eyes of his sculpture, the format of the face too, long and slim. He used as models the Brazilian people of the time, descendants of Portuguese and local native Indians. I still love his style and I consider him the only authentic artist of the Brazil’s History ( besides me and an authentic genius, if he was European would be considered on of the great masters, but he was Brazilian, from the 18th century… so nobody give a crap.
Weird, maybe because I am a painter, maybe for hidden reasons, but Cranach at the German’s 16th century looks closer to me than Aleijadinho, Brazilian of the 18th century. Maybe because has Cranach in Sao Paulo’s Museums but not Aleijadinho as his works are at the State of Minas Gerais at North of my State.
But my painting’s meanings have have lot’s to do with Cranach’s and Aleijadinho and absolute nothing at the same time.
Hope you enjoy….
Have a nice weekend, I woke up today ( Saturday) at 6:00am to start to paint and now it is 2:15pm. I finished one hour ago. Yes it was a nice and slow painting enjoying the sunny morning of Spring.

POSTED BY CAIO FERN

CUT – acrylic on canvas by Caio Fern 2011 -

On these works I intended to only make the main figure have to deal with itself in a way the space around isn’t necessary to be present.
On my paintings over the years ( the last 12 years ) the space around the main figure painted on raw canvasses is denied but here it is totally excluded.
These characteristics are always happening for the same reason. To isolate the individual from the environment and make it be forced to only deal with itself.

POSTED BY CAIo Fern