Body Electric
The Apogee –
3 Leicester Place. WC2H 7BP
London, United Kingdom
Hercules Fisherman
25th October – 14th Nov
This is an exploration, a shared experience by the artist, model and the viewer. Jet black inks piercing through wafer thin rice paper, high blotting properties, incredibly tensile for its measure. A combination that leaves little room for corrections, every mark soaked through and defined. Plays well with the artist as he does not own an eraser. He sees drawing as a free flow of energy. To erase is to reduce or diminish its impact. As in Whitman, influences of Khayyam and Tao philosophies are very much evident.
Bodies bare to their natural state represent freedom and liberation, contrasting socio-political dogmas and strictures.
“ …The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me …”
from
by Walt Whitman
Testimonials & Reviews
“I personally met Hercules less than 2 months ago in a life-drawing session, The very first moment I saw him painting I was completely amazed by his work. Fresh, relaxed, concentrated, separate lines… each of them independent from the rest, each of them a work of art on their own, each of them telling a story, but all together composing beautiful dynamic figures. Going from thin to tick, and then back to thin. Silk joyful snakes playing on the surface of the paper, dancing together to the music of Hercules’ wrist and body… cause that’s the way he paints, with his body.
Looking at his paintings is like watching only the tip of an iceberg: you can get a grasp of what he is trying to show, of how his mind works in order to reduce complex model poses into some few random lines, but if you really want to understand his art you definitely need to see him perform live. Seeing this guy moving his arms and hands to the same rhythm than the lines they draw, helps you realise that it is not really him the one painting, but a powerful shock of electricity that starts beating deep in his heart and propagates eclectically to the tip of his paintbrushes.
I am an artist myself, the kind of obsessive one. Always trying to get every single detail from reality and take it into paper, a shadow in a knee, a bright of light over the shoulder, eyelashes, nails, details, and more details…and I must say that if there is any feeling I keep to this guy…is envy. I hate him, despise him and wish I could just for one day in my life, have the ability to make things so simple, without thinking that much and feeling instead the atmosphere of the moment the way he does. So come on, take a look, and enjoy this man’s work… as I am sure that after a while, you will also come to envy him as much as I do!”
Agustin Baretto (Oct 2010)
painter & IT engineer
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lanaranjamecanica
“Every subject is meticulously observed and then Hercules uses decisive brushwork to portray both the physical form and spirit of his observations. Nothing is ever clichéd and every portrait is fresh and unique”
Mary Glenwright (Oct 2010)
