Alberto Pavan Art

Tropicalia . Boto Cor de Rosa 2

Tropicalia


Tropicália


Part of my work had been influenced by my staying in Brazil and the discovery of the Brazilian cultural movement of the 60s known as Tropicália. It is a movement contemporary to the beatnik generation in America and Europe. It interested me the integration of “modern” themes ( for example, in music, the use of electric guitars) with Brazilian folk and tradition, re-inventing folkloric artistic expressions previously considered naff and embarrassing and re-presenting them as integral part of the cultural background of the country.

David Bowie said that a fly in his milk was a foreign body and as such the fly was getting an awful lot of his milk, making a parallel with his staying in America. David Bowie absorbed elements of soul music, and made them his own. My arrival in Brazil had a similar effect on me. Not that I am comparing myself with David Bowie, I am not that vain, but I felt the rituals, the legends, the colours, the spirits of the lands attaching themselves to me and becoming my experience and, like in the Tropicalia movement, I cannibalised this country tradition, fed on it and made it my own flesh and blood.

The image above is the Boto Corderosa . It is my own interpretation of this water spirit who was constantly evil by the folklore because, while during the day he was a pink dolphin swimming in the Amazons River, at night he took the shape of a handsome black man, wearing white and his interest was to seduce young women and impregnable them with his child. He was irresistible. Women could not refuse themselves to him. My Boto, however is a homosexual Boto. He is irresistible to the men. He doesn’t spread his genes by impregnating virgins, but he offers to the homophobe, chauvinist, bigot male a homosexual experience which has the potential to change his frame of reference.


Boto CordeRosa - oil on canvas 29x39 cm
£180





Tropicalia . GBP big

The green beans peeler - 2/2023 50X40cm Oil on canvas
Price : £ 190


A representation in oil of a theme I already worked on in watercolours. This is one of the paintings that belong to the Brazilian collection. In Pipa, the green beans peeler is a character that may passed unobserved. The very, very poor conditions of some of the categories of Brazilian citizen, force families to become experts in creating parallel economies and in improvising financial activities which demand the smallest possible sum of money as an initial investment. The green beans pealeis are usually the wives of some improvised green grocer, without a shop and without even a car from which to promote his business. Often the man stands on a pavement, with few items to be sold, (the likes of 2 or 3 mangos, 2 or 3 avocados, a few bags of parsley and bags full of the local beans. The wife is recognisable because she sits near by, often shaded by a tree and she shell the beans, throws the empty pod on a small mountain of them and the beans go in a basin; eventually they will be placed in plastic bags and sold by her husband. Last year, I made this caractere infused of a bucolic nobility, a ferral pride which reflected also on her surrounding. She was, in fact, placed in the middle of a lush tropical view. This new version of the same woman, has more anger, more frustration. She is more upset than stoically accepting her fate without any complaint. And her surrounding is not generous and lush. It is dry, grey, unwelcoming



Tropicalia . Boto watercolour

A watercolour version of the Boto made in 2021



Tropicalia . Bossa Nova

Bossa Nova - 03/2022 Size A3 Oil on paper . Framed

A moreno with the face of a hippie is playing a sweat melody on his old guitar with the sea, the sand and the sunset as his source of inspiration.



Tropicalia . Bosa nova nuova

Bossa Nove 2

Oil on canvas - Pipa , Brazil 3/2023. Cm 40x60 £ 200. The same subject painted one year after. The guitar player looks less young, strong and sexy; he is thinner, older, dryer. Maybe I will change the title of this painting and call it MPB. Not because MPB singers are uglier, but because, as a music, MPB is more political, less sugary than Bosa Nova



Tropicalia . Come! Together we’ll do great

Come! Together we’ll do great! 04/2023 Size A4, Oil on canvas
Price £150.

Two one winged angels find in each other the completion they craved



Tropicalia . Menino da Pipa 2023

Menino da Pipa - 2/2023 Oil on canvas Cm 60X50
Price £220

A male figure walking in a colourful street.



Tropicalia . Us

Us - a self-portrait of Nelson and I . 3/2023 Oil on canvas
Picture is not for sale. Belongs to private collector



Tropicalia . The languid

The languid and the city - 3/2023 - Size A4 Oil on paper - Framed
Price £80



Tropicalia . A lush view

The influences of a tropical surrounding

After having start my artistic career strictly in monochrome, using ink on paper for a series of erotic drawing, and developing from that to the use of gloomy colours, I went to the NorthEast of Brazil. Soon after my arrival in Pipa, this small surfers village near Natal, it was unavoidable for my palet to be heavily affected by the environment. In the tropics, light has a blinding quality when the sun is up, bleaching everything toward a sandy white, but, under the first shocking moment of intense brightness, underneath one can perceive the presence of vibrant, intense colours clashing with each other. The most unthinkable juxtaposition of shades are ordinary in the tropics. Sweat, intense smells impregnate the air intoxicating as much as the colours. Sometime so reach that one can sense the imminent on-setting of decomposition. It is inebriating to the point of nausea. The heat is humid and intense, uncomfortable when you arrive from Europe. I was very nervous, afraid not to be able to adapt. Then I went to the beach. Everything made sense then. The heat no longer bothered me. The colours were in harmony, the smells became perfumes. If heaven in on earth, it must be there.




A lush view




Tropicalia . The surfer

The surfer - 3/2023 - Oil on canvas
Price £180



Tropicalia . The Donna nuda

The Donna nuda - 4/2023. Size A4 - Oil on canvas
Price £100



Tropicalia . A nude boy in his innocence

A nude boy in his innocence - 4/2023 40X40 Oil on canvas
Price £200



Tropicalia . A lush view with cat

A lush view with a cat - oil on canvas



Tropicalia . Transgender bust in an exterior

Transgender bust in an exterior - 4/2023 - 50X40 Oil on canvas
Price £250



Tropicalia . Saffo 2

Saffo 2 - 2/2023 Size A4. Oil on canvas
Price £120



Tropicalia . The sea is polluted

The sea is polluted - 2/2023 Size 55X35 Oil on canvas
Price £200

Westerner swimmers in a oily sea



Tropicalia . Graça

Graça - 2/2023 digital portrait of a friend



Tropicalia . The wise non-binary

The wise non-binary person - 4/2023 Size A2 Oil on canvas
Price £200

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