Robert Filliou #1 Painting by Davis Lisboa

Painting: Oil on Canvas.

THE PAINTINGS SECTION FROM DAVIS MUSEUM

The Davis Lisboa Mini-Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona

Davis Lisboa, "Robert Filliou #1", 2012, oil on canvas, 11,8 x 11,8 in

What / who inspired the work?
The painting "Menino Com Tabuleiro" (1947) by Brazilian painter Cândido Portinari was my inspiration for this work.

What do you hope viewers will feel / think?
When I was a child we had a color reproduction of the "Menino Com Tabuleiro" (Boy With Board) that hung on the wall where we lived in São Paulo, Brazil. I spent a long time trying to discover the reason why Portinari had decided to hide the child's face in that picture. Of course, it was impossible to know and that mystery has never left my memory. I hope viewers repeat the same feeling of anguish that I experimented when I was 6 years old.

Why did you choose the medium, subject matter, style?
I chose oil painting because it is a widespread technique to represent people. That makes me wonder: Can a painting still be contemporary? At the same time, oil painting is radically opposed to the principles of Fluxus, an international group of artists in the '60s, in which Robert Filliou was a member.

THE PAINTINGS FROM DAVIS MUSEUM IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

The Alejandro Vásquez Herrero Collection, Viladecans, Spain.
The Daniel Marcoux Collection, Montreal, Canada.
The Francesc Torres Collection, Barcelona, Spain.
The Geert De Kegel Collection, Zele, Belgium
The Yellowstone Club Collection, Big Sky, Montana, USA.