Ongoing
“Europe Classic” is an art project devoted fully to what one might call the classic feeling of Europe. But with a twist from modernity. Modernity being like a tear - or a thin foil.
The excerpt here has been developed from one of three (giant) large drawings (originally made for three clients around Europe) that cultivate the classic (mountainous and rainy), central Europe - not without the weight that is so obvious (whether it is Veneto, Istria, Savoia, etc.) and the sadness there may appear to vibrate in the 'sculptures' of the buildings and under the eaves.
I have always been passionate about drawing. Letting the work grow solely through the lines.
Being now just as happy to let the colors shower over and in a way almost overpower the lines (I think the excerpt here is an example of that) I’m now reworking the three ‘classics’ as pre works and pre studies for new art prints and wall paintings ahead.
In the foreground of each of the large drawings (the excerpt below is from middle and background) modern people (us the travelers, us northerners, us with the veneration for, and the economy of, renovated, rustic, authentic country houses) are seen in varied, almost floating, transit scenes. At the top of the sky always an airplane. Heading from one distant promising place to another.
I'm aware that no place looks like this. Nowhere are the churches / cathedrals (as here) SO densely placed, and nowhere are the churches / cathedrals (as here) larger in extent than their villages / towns. It is an imaginary landscape. In my optics, I think this ‘displacement’ / ‘distortion’ - or more mildly, this transposition - reinforces the impression of Latin, static, statuary alluring weight. As a kind of silent commentary track to modernity, its speed and all its flux.