Picasso, Nude on Black Couch

Picasso, Nude on a Black Couch, 1932, Oil on canvas, 162 x 130cm

Picasso's Nude on a Black Couch is a masterpiece for me. This painting is highly erotic. You can almost hear the voluptuous girl in a state of complete undressed and holding a virgin white calla lily lazily unfurling herself in sheer comfort on a sensual black velvet couch. Are the eagerly philodendron leaves unfolding and sprouting around her a symbol of her fertility or are they waiting for the opportunity to caress her?

The girl is supposingly Marie Therese, Picasso's mistress. Picasso was 51 and she 18 before they started a 30 years tempestous affair.

The highly pleasing colour composition and erotically charged meaning behind the painting makes this a coveted piece worthy of any playboy's penthouses. It would be most wonderful if this painting ever gets a chance to be view by the public.

Li Chen's sculpture (sculpture)

Although highly reminiscent of Botero's work, Li Chen's sculptures have a happy, lovable, dreamy qualitites in them whilst dark, sinister, melancholic undertones reside in Botero's.

Chinese paper cuts (Folk art)

It's Chinese New Year and for thousands of years, the Chinese use paper-cuts laden with auspicious symbols to decorate their homes and to usher in the new year. The often common and gloomy atmosphere of poverty stricken homes that know no colour is given much life with freshly cut bright red paper cuts. Such is the psychological benefit of art.

Folks art is art by the ordinary people for ordinary social needs. A labourer's hand and a cheap pair of scissors transform a rough piece of paper into magic. This is what i call the raw expression of creativity...

Traditionally in China, folk art is done by the ordinary villager who toils the fields for a living but engages in folk art during non-harvesting periods either for leisure or to sell works for extra income. The unpolished beauty of such works often intrigued and touched me but not those intricate and artisically excellent art that mimick the style of folk art produced in artisan studios as much as i admire their quality.

Gavin Turk, Bag 9, 2001, (Contemporary art)

Gavin Turk, Bag 9, 2001, 60.5 x 57 x 48cm, The New Art Gallery Walsall

When i first saw this at a gallery i really thought it was a garbage bag forgotten by the cleaner thanks to the clever display. Although lacking in aesthetic merit, this is nonetheless a very bemusing piece. I appreciate those contemporary art that challenges perceptions. The message is also ironic. Bronze, a symbol of permanence is inverted for disposability. A prized material is now accrued the status of trash. Once aware, an symbol of contempt quickly becomes revered as valuable art.

Sam Talyor-Wood - A Little Death , 2002 (Video art)

Sam Taylor Wood, A Little Death, 2002, DVD on plasma screen, 103 x 64cm, 4 mins and 30 seconds

I first saw this piece of video presentation at the National Gallery in London for a touring exhibition "The stuff of Life" and was quite mesmerised by it. This work is one of the modern interpretation of the seventeenth centurty Dutch still life vanitas-theme paintings. Other than the errie but poignant sight of decay accelerated before our eyes, I find this piece very meaningful and impactful in depicting the process of life after death, particulary how life comes from death and how death is so dynamic and lively.

Apparently there is sexual reading behind the work too. The title "a little death" is a phrase coined by the nineteenth century French intellectual Georges Bataille to describe orgasm. Further encouragement to a sexual reading is provided by the choice of animal. A hare often an explicity symbol of lust (as is a case in other of Talyor-Wood's works).

Mysteriously, the out of season suggestively looking peach that accompanied the hare was unaffected by decay during the nine weeks video shoot.

Hirosho Sugimoto - Aegean Sea, Pilion 1990 (Photography/nature)

Hirosho Sugimoto, Aegean Sea, Pilion, 1990

Hiroshi Sugimoto's sea-scapes always engulf me. The sea, an entity of pure energy right before us, overwhelming and incomprehensible yet for now all so calm and contained.

Pissarro - Self Portrait 1903 (Impressionism)

Pissarro, Self - Portrait, 1903, Oil on canvas, 41 x 33 cm, London, Tate Gallery

I tend not to prefer naturalistic portraiture and prefer something more intepretive that captures the essence of the sitter. Pissarro's Self Portrait done in 1903 is a charming piece.

Rene Margritte - The Red Model (Surrealism)

The Red Model, 1935, Oil on Canvas, 74 cm x 50 cm


First encountered Margritte whilst at the tastfully industrial looking Centre Pompidou Paris for an exhibition related to surrealist art. As I was strolling along with fatigue from all the walking, the Red model arrested my attention and brought me back to life. It was a small painting but with the immensity monumental enough to unseattle any viewer. Good art does not have to be beautiful but should always evokes an emotional response from the viewer, in this case that of disturbance and morbid fascination. It's like a war scene with the body of the soldier being blown away leaving behind the boots and legs. The wood as a backdrop stands for the coffin and soil/gravel stands for burial. The title Red Model adds to the convulsion with red signifying blood (or the lack/loss of it in this instance) whilst model signifying 'a model of war'. Everyday comon objects/subjects have undergone an uncany metamorphosis under the hands of Margitte.



P.S. This might might not be the actual piece i saw as Margritte did several versions of the red model.

El Greco - The Baptism of Christ (Mannerism)

Baptism of Christ
1596-1600
Oil on canvas,111 x 47
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

The first time i saw this piece of work was in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome. Not knowing why, but I was pretty transfixed with this piece of work and ever since got hooked on El Greco. Incidentally that encounter was the first time I got to know about El Greco and ignorantly thought he was some obscure mannerist painter. It turned out his style influenced a generation of artists including Velaquez and Francis Bacon...I was thinking perhaps this is how art should be judeged. It strikes a cord with the audience regardless of the reputation of the artist. The aesthetic experience is not an artefact of prior knowledge.