Monday, November 29, 2010

CAPTURING A SHANTY TOWN!


CITY OF GOLD


I have been extremely lucky as a child and as an adult to be able to travel to exotic places. Architecture has always intrigued me, from cathedrals in Europe to the minarets of the Middle East. This particular painting was inspired to me by the famous 'FAVELAS' of BRAZIL.It is painted in metallic colors and shows very simple detail in shades of blues,burgundies and gold.


A favela is basically a shanty town. When i was in Rio a few years back,the area of ROCHINHA  hosts about a quarter million people living on the hillsides of Rio with  homes that are made of inexpensive lumber and tin roof tops . There is a sense of compression to see these homes stacked on top of each other , with total lack of  space.Yet from a distance ,one can see a skyline of  absolutely absurd roof tops staring at you among the golden sunsets behind them.

These similarities of shanty homes can be found  in Africa and Asia.It never seizes to amaze me that while we live in the capitalistic West , we continuously ask for more and more.....yet millions of people around the world seem blessed  to have a 'TIN  ROOF' over their heads.

Their world is simple .....yet it seems ours is so complex.

2 comments:

  1. How interesting. No wonder you have so many great paintings -- when you have so much to draw from in that you travel the world. You also can see first hand how we seem to take for granted all that we have, and see how little other countries live with and even rejoice in having.

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  2. so very true pam...your words are golden.
    unfortunately we are all living in a huge illusion in the west.
    when you travel and see the world one really sees what it is to survive...let alone live.

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