Blood Diamonds Painting

"African colors always had a strong influence in artists. African art is always colorful. African Continent it is known for having the oldest cave paintings in the world. Our connection with Africa is more than natural and obvious. If skin color changes due to climate change and regions, also changes due to our lifestyle. The racism, tribalism or any other forms of segregation are a form of denial from our ancestors." Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous and diaspora ethnic groups of African descent. Pan-Africanism is a belief that "African people, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny". Pan-Africanist intellectual, cultural, and political movements tend to view all Africans and descendants of Africans as belonging to a single "race" and/or sharing cultural unity. "I am descendant from Portuguese, Spanish and Angolan ancestors. My grandmother is Angolan, born in the city of Luanda. Luanda is the richest city in the African continent. I made this artwork, as a self-portrait with the red and black background, i which are the colors of Angola. This colors are also the colors of red diamonds or "blood diamonds"." Reports estimated that as much as 21% of the total diamond production in the 1980s was being sold for illegal and unethical purposes and 19% was specifically conflict in nature. The creation of Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) was very important to restore the control of this uncontrolled sale of diamonds in Angola. The Red diamonds are commonly known as the most expensive and the rarest diamond color in the world, even more so than pink diamonds or blue diamonds, as very few red diamonds have been found. "Angola was destroyed by a devastating civil war that started in 1975. The Portuguese colonialism during the fascim or right wing government of Salazar, made Angola, as well other countries in Africa, a colony to be "protected" in 1961until the end of 1975. The so called "The Portuguese Colonial War". Although in 1975 after the Portuguese Revolution, Angola entered in a very dangerous and violent civil war that ended in 2002, this country lived in civil war for many years. This portrait it is inspired on the portrait of "Spring' by the artist Arcimboldo (born in 1527), of mannerism or Late Renaissance. In 1563, at the age of 36, Arcimboldo left Italy to work in the imperial courts of the Habsburg rulers, where he successively served the emperors Fernando I, Maximilian II and Rudolf II, becoming one of the favorite painters of the court, making several decorations for the imperial theater and portraits of the royal family." Occultism was an important reference for Arcimboldo, as we see in his anthropomorphic landscapes, in which human bodies and faces are suggested by the representation of reliefs, trees, stones, and other elements of a landscape, and in his series related to nature , for example, “The Four Seasons”, made for Maximilian II. In this series, the artist made reference to the portrait genre, preserving the opulence of the courtly portrait, but built his characters from images of fauna and flora. Surrealists appreciated the fascinating mix of satire and allegory in Arcimboldo's works, and placed great value on the visual play that exists in his compositions.

Painting:Acrylic on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:19.7 W x 19.7 H x 1.2 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.