THE RED LIGHT

Monsieur le baron.......
Sgt. Pinot a regular ........
La grande Zoe.....

First post of the new decade, hopping for many more .I've decided to regroup under the "red light "banner,drawings and paintings inspired by the early 20th century brothels .Bordellos were perhaps the only place where all classes of the society were mixing ,willingly or not.It might have been an interesting place to "study characters"for sure as so many artists in the past, seem to have been inspired by such places.

LA RUE #7

Close-up.....
Is this the cold or cheap wine......!!?
A 1930's street hobo ala Bofa. I'm just having fun to end this year......

This is the last painting for 2009 and it's still drying .......

LE CIRQUE

"I've always been inspired by the wordless novels,a genre made famous by early 20th century artists such as Frans Masereel and Otto Nuckel just to name a few. So, I've decided to give that lost art a try. But also decided to give it a twist by first, not imposing a particular "order" to the paintings but rather let the viewer choose and make its own story with the given elements. The other self imposed constraints were:13 paintings ,no freaks or clowns and only 4 colors [the circus colors ] red ,yellow, white and black.

Wordless picture stories have a unique and especially intimate relationship to their readers. In order to follow the narrative these works ask the viewer to guess what's taken place, then connect the dots from one image to the other and get the full story unfold. Nothing is up front but rather suggested and sometimes demands repeated viewing and lots of guessing."

EDWARDIAN TIMES

Gotta love that bowler .......
Jekyll & Hyde style....

Two drawings made for the 2009 edwardian ball in San Francisco....as studies for a diorama box.

SELF PORTRAIT#2

A close-up changes the atmosphere.....
A Christmas self portrait......

As my favorite draughtsmen :Gus Bofa ,Pascin ,Grosz, Beckmann or Bruno Schulz ,if i may dare any comparison here,i've found the use of a black and white palette to be more interesting. Especially when you instantly want to create an atmosphere that focuses on the subject ...Here in the "self portrait serie" a little Christmas painting .It's still fresh.

LA RUE #6

The original idea started here with this rough sketch......
Day......
Night.......

A night and day set of drawings,with an expressionist flair and a Jekyll and Hyde twist to it.It was a project for a diorama.

LA RUE #5

La mondaine......
A La cloche......
La mome cachou....

A small serie in the same expressionist manner .It all about the power of black and white.