Q&A

A Conversation With Marcelo Daldoce,
Celebrating Women, Wine and Words on Canvas

For Marcelo Daldoce, a mostly self-taught artist from São Paulo, Brazil, the maxim “bigger is better” definitely applies.

His preference for large-scale paintings (mostly on 98-inch-tall-by-49-inch-wide canvases) has resulted in a series of simultaneoulsy imposing and enchanting nude female portraits. Size, in this case, matters. But it’s not just size that will have you gawking. His unique style—influenced by such disparate artists as John Singer Sargent and Jackson Pollock, shaped also by his own experience as an illustrator—yields lively, seemingly three-dimensional celebrations of the female form, accentuating the sensual, hinting at the erotic. His paintings, many of which are inspired by his girlfriend (and muse) Ali, combine realistic-yet-idealized lines and figures with playful splatters of paint, fluid brushstrokes and vibrant-yet-soft fanciful colors. 

Daldoce’s portraitures evoke the essence of vintage pin-up artwork and echo elements of pop art. The latter impression can be attributed to the artist’s recurrent employment of words, as characters in their own right, in much of his work—perhaps the most visible way in which his “day job” influences his paintings. And Daldoce’s mastery of typography is immediately evident and unfailingly effective, his integration of words and phrases—sometimes nonsensical, others meaningful—always create another layer of suggestiveness, along with adding a distinctive stamp, to his portraits.

And while Daldoce is certainly adept with either watercolors or acrylics on his brush, it is another more unconventional medium that sets him apart, and what first brought him to my attention. Daldoce paints with wine. Yes, wine! He’s completed a series featuring his iconic female portraits using a variety of varietals—a different type of wine, from Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon to Chardonny (though he seems to prefer reds, and I couldn’t agree more), for each one. He also painted the portraits of four famous Brazilian sommeliers using wine to accompany an article in one of the country’s largest newspapers, Folha de São Paulo. Daldoce has also recently embarked on a new series of wine paintings. While the technique is unique, it is the amazing outcome that make his wine paintings noteworthy. Here’s the YouTube video that alerted me to this virtuoso (Bukowski would be proud, as long as a majority of the wine was consumed by the painter and not the painting, and Daldoce assured me that was indeed the case):

Marcelo Daldoce, who held a solo exhibition in a New York gallery in 2007 and one in Brazil the following year, is currently preparing for a show of his wine work in July. On the threshold of a major breakthrough, the 29-year-old artist recently took time to discuss the roots of his creativity, the inspiration for his ingenious work, his process and style, the struggles of balancing the demands of his job and his desire to paint, his ambition to improve, and much more with The Madness of Art. Read more…

A Conversation With Michelle Oravitz,
Translating a World Beyond the Senses

Since discovering the work of Miami-based artist Michelle Oravitz a few weeks ago, I’ve been captivated—regularly revisiting the images as I search for the right words to accurately assess it, without understating its brilliance while avoiding the trap of hyperbolic adjectives. The former has proven far easier than the latter. 

Her paintings transcend typical classification, managing to touch opposite ends of the creative and emotive spectrum in each of her pieces: free-flowing yet intricate, stirring yet serene, at once personal and universal, spiritual yet sensual, trance-inducing and thought-provoking. Her fusion of potentially inharmonious colors—bright and intense warms playing off vibrant and soothing cools—triggers an electric dance on the surface of the canvas, revealing a multidimensional world akin to one experienced by the meditative mind.

In an effort to capture the essence of Michelle’s creations, one word, alas, best applies: captivating. As the welcome screen of her Web site accurately proclaims, “When Colors Dream, Eyes Listen.”

And while the Internet plays an increasingly important role for artists, expanding exponentially opportunities for exposure, the true power of Michelle’s paintings—like most—is fully realized on the wall, not the computer screen (as my wife and I can now attest).

The 35-year-old mother of two, yoga instructor and independent artist—featured last month in Yoga Magazine—draws on her personal experiences practicing yoga and meditation, channeling those peaceful vibrations into dreamlike images on canvas. Her work elicits no immediate or obvious comparisons to more well-known, influential artists; her style is all her own. One of her pieces appears in the film “The Unborn,” others on album covers and in books. She has also been invited to the prestigious Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea, an international juried exhibition in Florence next December.

Michelle recently took time to discuss her work and her creative process, where she turns to for inspiration, what role art plays in her life, how she would advise aspiring artists, and much more with The Madness of Art. Read more…

A Conversation With Michael J. Phillips,
Founder and Editor of Bukowski.net

From the moment I read my first Bukowski poem (“so you want to be a writer?”) in my first Bukowski book (“sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way”), I was hooked. 

I had never read anything like it, and I wanted more—and more. 

Over the next several years, I would buy a new Bukowski book—a collection of poems, columns, stories, letters, essays, or a full-length novel—whenever possible. The sheer volume of his work is matched only by the quality of it all. As my writing partner (who first recommended Bukowski) and I often do during late-night, wine-drinking phone conversations, picking any page number from any collection results in the same reaction: “Wow!” Read more…