“Black Butterflies Follow Its Beats” Print

Passion, intensity, color, line, beauty. These are descriptions of both flamenco dance and my watercolor paintings. Winters in Canada are cold and long, so I try to be in Cadiz, Jerez de la Frontera or Sevilla; ideally in a flamenco bar. Flamenco music and dance are the perfect subject matter, filled with life. In flamenco they use an untranslatable Spanish word, “duende”, that can mean something like spirit, mystery, magic. Federico Garcia Lorca wrote: “The duende charges itself with creating suffering by means of a drama of living forms, and clears the way for an escape from the reality that surrounds us… The duende never repeats itself, any more than the waves of the sea do in a storm.” On the other hand, the art writer Clive Bell said that “the representative element in a work of art may or may not be harmful; always it is irrelevant” and art is actually just “lines and colours combined in a particular way… that stir our aesthetic emotions”. So I also consider the standard painterly concerns like warm/cool, light/dark, positive/negative shapes, hard and soft edges. By this thinking, the paint medium should not matter, but I’ve always been drawn to watercolor; the challenge of its unpredictability, unchangeability, transparency and spontaneity. Originally starting out as an Architect, I quickly shifted to the artistic side and worked for many years as an Architectural Illustrator. For a decade I was a Senior Concept Artist at one of the world’s top theme park design companies. Over the years I rebelled against straight lines and computer work and started hand painting dancers. I am now painting watercolors full time. Many people have asked about my painting titles. The names are all excerpt quotes from poetry by Garcia Lorca.