The Twelve Gord'ns (Jan 2009-Dec 2009)

A visual exercise can re-enforce the good or the bad in us, precisely what this painting is intended to do.

I abhor physical violence but I also do not agree with the supression of ideological struggle, as the P... Correcteness can do.

One way is to propagate the facts as they happen in the present or past, in different places around the world.

Gord'n VOW

Rules, principles, giving all back to the tax payers, should be a 'must' for any civil servant. It is not what people really feel. It is not a portrait of anyone in particular, however, it is based on a top civil servant who had 40+ free-weekends with one type of minority, the one that pays the highest taxes. Wrong? Evidently not! Only, if I were rich, I would not have any personal interest to invite him.



Gord'n ROW

Populism always backfires. I became protective of this personage I never heard before but when he became a political scapegoat. Any political persecution, I know it very well, has to be fought against, it doesn't matter where it comes from. The portrait is based on several published photos.



Gord'n DROWN

The one that is all the time smiling to the bosses, polishing his/her shoes, but in the end, behind the meekness of the smile, there is a greedy self, re-enforcing the bad as much as the good. The reality is different, so why not an angry very grumpy one? No one posed for this one.



Gord'n BOW and Gord'n DOWN

Both Darlings, one based on a TV series and the other one very real. They are the good and the bad conscience portrayed in many cartoons.

Is one of them too bad not to be listened? Is the real one too bad he has to CONFORM all the time? Both are painted from memory.

Conformism is one of the human traits that explains a good part of the human social behaviour. There are exceptions out there, rare but influential.



Gord'n CROWN

It seems Gord'n CROWN does not listen. He has a mission, he has the power, but he failed by being the leader in a period when, having all the tools, even the opportunity to have well-guided use of computers or his trusted knowledge of the 1929 crash, and all the other minor or bigger well documented crises before and after that crash. Couldn't he remember the lawful separation of two antagonist bank functions then-after?

The human GB could have (but he did not) led all of us to an easier inevitable 20XX crisis.

Instead, why did he conform with the de-regulation of those bank functions? Why did he not reverse them? Why did GB not have time to listen to the isolated voices, not drunken by power, warning him of the dangers?

Please... do not wash your hands!

The portrait is Brown himself, based on various non-published images.



Gord'n POUND

What to say about what in this complex world rules almost everything for good or bad? Ok, not the pound really, but it still has a close 'saudade' to one's heart. The portrait is of a loved person, based on several photos.



Gord'n CLOWN

Professional artists should respond to the demands of the times, having comissions, working for others, discussing with their patrons. They should make a living out of their work, as workers, and the contractors surely should be sure of what they wanted.

Free paintings, art for the art sake, or amateurs like me, can paint whatever they want, but in this case we have to expect the poverty of the demand (if we put our works in the market).

Right or wrong, as soon as coins take the place of art, it is dificult to say what's good or not, currency is artless. If the greedy rich buy art for the sake of the investment, then, only those who do not buy or appreciate art through its nominative price can enjoy each work of art. 'Poor' means all, rich or poor, who value the creation or the message, even the decorative side.

Everyone wears a mask. It is the trend that puts values in value or absence of value. Sad not to live in times of hope and love! Can't wait for good music! It will come, one day.

What about Right or Wrong, Good or Bad (the trivial not the prescriptive gulps)?

The majority sees all being measured in coins, many putting permissiveness on the social side, instead of the private side of life. It is also the eternal fight between HAVE and BE.

It is not a particular clown but it is good to remind masks are one of the universal culturally creations of human beings.

Gord'n ADAM and Gord'n EVE

The old myths representing the first humans are part of the myths and mysteries pervadingthe first years of conditioning behaviour of a good part of the humanity . These original sinners cannot run away of the responsibility of their acts and its meaning. More, without flesh, Adam and Eve cannot blame others and less washing their hands when things go wrong (well, and blame others). After being happily perfect (love had not been invented beyond flesh, as such), they came down to the real world, invented the first shoes, and they had to work as an independent team. Valid for all, even for those who want it all, read my words, any independence brings losses and gains (good or bad, painful or pleasurable).

Please, let myths (and heros) not be real humans, at least still alive. The last one in the spotlight was a tiger in a fresh burnt savannah, now he is a tiger in a secluded forest. No one, including photos, were the models for these two vain myths.



Gord'n GOWN

A former university colleague told me that the last modern things are the superior things. Then he said why his faith, which had been created 500 years after a Roman governor washed his hands, was the superior of the only big three, the only ones really valid.

His ideology was the most petrol-dollars active and dominant, the one that was conquering the world, winning all battles, including the ideological. He end up, together with a small group of other colleagues who then had joined up the 'discussion' (I was silent), commenting about the decadence of the western society.

Somehow, to my concern, some of the western colleagues, clearly not part of the same propagandistic fallacies but converted to this show of power, sympathised with them.

Who is this personage painted so simplistically, and with such a large confident smile? This personage that hides all but her feelings? Gowns and masks are not so different, masks probably for certain occasions, cellebrations, (pantomines use masks), etc.

It is everyone believing in a future on Earth, with probably a connection with the paradise. It is any man or woman who fights action with re-action, in a same power struggle, with both sides apparently on a flat basis (if the fight is not declared).

Who this figure can be? Most Christian Europeans used to wear not long ago head-covers, and some, like Catholics in Nazareth, Portugal, would wear black clothes, covering the body completely and most of the face with the exception of the brown eyes (some say now it was a myth propagated by a former dictatorship).

More, on our doorstep we can still see the past in the 'Sevillanas', or the defensive or battling mark of the uniform in nuns and nurses. Some monks use hoodies and brown rough clothes to convey the message of humiliaty. He sends the message but no one knows if the carrier is really humble. In the old days even some prisoners would achieve redemption if they were not visible to the society by using a full head cover.

The best trait about culture is that it is dynamic (it changes). It is better not to confuse culture (behaviour) with immutable ideologies (that influence culture at very early ages though).

If political interference is not an issue, head covers, whatever form they come in, are also still being used today by many people and in many cultures (including small groups or gangs) or because, like me, to avoid the scary frost. And I can see a bald woman using a head cover because she does not like wigs.

Between the past and the present, some women had to use head covers to protect themselves from the dryness and scorching Sun, but once submissive to an ideology (that modifyied their behaviour by creating myths), they forgot the function of those covers in the first place.

Evidently, whatever ideology or fashion, the majority of women do not wear them nowadays.

However, if ideological confrontation needs symbols of political resistance many will wear that skin, and many have already adopted these symbols as such, rigidly. They became a diffused point of political power-struggle.

The greatest mass murderers I knew in Africa were the greatest smilers/laughers. This is the connection, a big smile can be part of no-empathy linked with many psychopaths, or the incensed feeling of considering 'the others' (tribes, etc) as no humans.

It is necessary to represent the greedy side of both sides, with or without head covers.



Gord'n FROWN

The only vibrating human figure (together with the hand) pointing to the human charade, also the human condition, and his/her particular future.