A personal, curatorial & bilingual Blog about: Artistic Movements, my Art, Creativity, Innovation, Design, Leadership, Empowerment, Sustainability, Science, Jazz, Movies and other cool pursuits - Blog personal y curatorial bilingüe sobre: Movimentos Artísticos, mi Arte, Creatividad, Innovación, Diseño, Liderazgo, Empoderamiento, Sustentabilidad, Ciencia, Jazz, Películas y otros temas.
Next week-end (July 7th) my great agents at Blue Period have organized a very exclusive show by invitation only at the very trendy Chiswick neighbourhood, in the outskirts of London.
There will be 18 of my works on show there, with key pieces spanning 5 years of my “Visual Jazz” concept.
I will not be there, but my artistic expression will be and I hope you feel the temptation to find out a bit more about my art.
Buying original art is a great investment in every sense. I invite you to consider the possibility and either way, I trust you will enjoy what you see!
The first of the videos prepared to accompany my work in my exhibitions happening this year in London, starting with Parallax Chelsea in May 2012, and following closely in July with the Blue Period organized Exhibit in Chiswick.
It is a compilation of some of my best known work together with jazz songs, videos and performances which have inspired this highly colorful and movement filled Visual Jazz series.
Inspiration is a funny thing. It can happen at any time, for any reason, and take any form. But for this rain of inspiration to be succesful, it also must find a fertile ground and the seeds of creation somewhere within it.
This is basically what happened last week. Looking to generate the mood for my previous blog entry ( A jazzy and colorful Lisbon Spring), I got caught in the beauty of a live performance by Michel Legrand and Stephan Grappelli of “How high the Moon” , recorded in Concert in London more than 25 years ago. So much so that I chose that song to accompany my entry and my painting “Water in the Moon” (featured there and part of my Lisbon Exhibit), over Duke Ellington’s “Misty Moon”, which was the song which had inspired that work of mine some time ago.
The song got stuck in my head, and the more I played it, the more I felt that I had to explore on canvas all the things that tune made me feel.
And so was born “How high the Moon”, a 50cm x 50cm painting, mixed media on canvas (acrylic, printing and Indian inks, on canvas), from March 2012. This painting has a connection of sorts with another reacent painting of mine entitled “Toulouse” ( La ville rose) and it is showing a new development in the way I am expressing my art.
HOW HIGH THE MOON, Mixed media on canvas, 50cm x 50cm (2012) by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera
As I said before, this painting was inspired by a very particular rendition of a Morgan Lewis’ tune, but since it is already a part of my previous entry, I thought of accompanying this new piece by a different version of the same song.
So here are the great Lester Young and the revolutionary Miles Davis playing their own version of this classic, live in West Germany, in 1956! I hope you enjoy it.
Until the next storm of inspiration catches me unaware!
Well, the time has arrived. My first pieces have made it into beautiful Lisbon and in just a few days (from March 31st, 2012), they will be exhibited at the Gallery.
It is a long way (both in distance and time wise) for my Australian born Visual Jazz to travel. For those of you who have never been there, Lisbon is the westernmost large city in Europe, and the only one along the Atlantic seashore. It is one of the major economic capitals on the continent, with a growing financial centre and one of the largest container ports on Europe’s Atlantic coast.
But above all, it is a wonderful city of in terms of culture and architecture.
Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world, predating London, Paris and Rome by hundreds of years. By the time Julius Caesar came along the city was large enough to the point that he made it a municipium then called Felicitas Julia, adding to the name Olissipo.
When I look at its history and culture, I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to show my art in such surroundings. Lisbon has two sites listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site: Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery, while in 1994, Lisbon was the European Capital of Culture.
Here is one of the paintings that were exhibited at the Fundacion Standard Bank Gallery Space in Buenos Aires between March and April last year, and which has luckily travelled now all the way to Portugal. It is called “Water in the Moon”. It is 50 cm. x 50 cm., mixed media on canvas and it is from 2011.
And to stay with this wonderful idea of a radiant and monumental city by the sea, beamed by a watery Moon, how about if we continue in this very Continental mood for the closing and share this video of Michel Legrand and Stephan Grappelli performing a great interpretation of Morgan Lewis’ “How high the Moon”, recorded live in 1984.
“It´s only a paper moon” is a classic song written in 1933 by Harold Arlen, with those wonderfully catchy lyrics by E. Y. Harburg and Billy Rose.
Incredibly enough, it had a pretty difficult birth, as the play for which it had been written bombed on Broadway. That should have been it, and the song should have been doomed to that big dumpster of anonimity in musical heaven.
But as it happens with so many great songs, it had to be redeemed by a keen eye and a great musical ear, and so it was that it became hugely popular on its own when it was picked up by two very classy acts like the magnificent Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded two wonderful versions, and none other than Nat King Cole and his Trio.
This painting is dedicated to this endearing song, particularly to Ella´s versions, and it is called “It´s just a canvas sky hanging over a muslin tree”, which is one of the lines in this very sweet tune.
Painted in 2012, mixed media on canvas, it is 80 cm x 60 cm, and it is hanging over my living room right now.
It’s whimsical, it is pure fantasy, it is nonsensical, but it is all true… if you just happen to believe in me… 🙂
"It´s only a canvas sky hanging over a muslin tree" (2012) by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera, 60cm x 80cm.
For all of you who may have never been there, or even worst, may not have heard of it before, Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. It is a city in which I spent a lot of time when I was growing up as my brother was studying there, and so I would travel to this great area of France over the holidays, visit my family, and enjoy the city’s many charms and those of the surrounding country side.
It is a beautiful town. It lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km (366 mi) away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With more that 1.1 million inhabitants the Toulouse metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in France, after Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Lille.
Toulouse is one of the bases of the European aerospace industry and its world renowned university is one of the oldest in Europe (founded in 1229) and the third-largest university campus of France after Paris and Lyon (thank you Wikipedia!).
Toulouse was the capital of the former province of Languedoc (provinces were abolished during the French Revolution). It is now the Chef-lieu of the Midi-Pyrénées region, the largest region in metropolitan France. It is also the Chef-lieu of the Haute-Garonne department.
This new painting, which will be shipping soon to Lisbon for my upcoming exhibition at Galeria Colorida during March 2012, is a small but heartfelt tribute to this lovely town often baptized as “la ville rose” because of its many red brick and pink buildings.
This work of mine received a great deal of inspiration as well from a gorgeous song by the great Ahmad Jamal, also entitled “Toulouse”, and which I am including below so you can listen to it while you look at this brand new painting. You may be able to see my painting then in a similar way to how I saw it as it emerged in my music filled mind. Or you can simply enjoy both the painting and the music!
IGNACIO ALPERIN: THE ART OF THINKING OUT LOUD / EL ARTE DE PENSAR EN VOZ ALTA 