A cadeira chegou para mim em agosto de 2014, estava quebrada e manchada. As rodinhas já não deslizavam mais.
O primeiro passo foi lixar todo o assento para retirar todo o verniz e deixá-lo branco novamente.
Tentei esboçar alguns desenhos num papel, mas, tudo só fluiu quando passei a desenhar, à mão livre, diretamente na peça
Utilizei uma caneta de tinta acrílica para executar com precisão a técnica do pontiismo.
Este processo se extendeu por mais 4 meses .
Finalmente terminei a pintura no início de 2015
Como as soldas do suporte da cadeira estavam quebradas, foi necessário fazer uma nova solda e uma pintura eletroestática preta por cima do cromado.
Quando pronta, a cadeira foi para a sessão de fotografia.
O fato da peça se feita de policarbonato, na cor branco maciço me permitiu realizar correções no desenho quando necessário.
Liberty Chair
The Liberty chair is the result of an interesting process of my life. And to express its importance I must contextualize it with the moment I was living.
The year was 2014. Year of elections in Brazil. I was working as a cinematographer in the troubled election campaign for governor and president from Brazil/São Paulo. In recent years Brazil has been going through a very difficult phase, in which corruption, untrue information, the lies of the press and the hostility on the streets has been very intensive.
In midst of a political campaign I was forced to live this situation every day. Two months before the election day, a plane crash killed one of the strongest candidates for the presidency and all his staff. Brazil was taken by a strong/ profound commotion and all the other candidates opted to suspend their campaigns during 10 days in mourning.
During this period, at home, I began to question everything that I was witnessing. The fact is that death always makes us reflect and so I started looking inside myself, searching for the motivation of life.
Art has always been an oxygen to me and after 10 years I decided to go back to painting. I bought everything I needed and restarted to paint canvases that I had left to paint for so many years. I wanted to revive them. That gave me an incredible energy.
During those few “free”days I was visiting a close friend. When I arrived at his dentist’s office I saw the broken chair, thrown into a corner. The seat was stained by some cleaning product, the base of the chair had the weld spoiled and the wheels no longer slided. This chair was a gift from his brother for his new office.
Well, so I brought it home and first left it in a corner. I wondered what to do with it. I would look at it, think and never could decide what really to do with it..
Unfortunately the brother of my friend who give the chair as a present for him passed away unexpectedly, bringing a great sorrow to the family and friends.
Once again death appeared. Although he was not very close to me, this affected me very much. So I thought, "I will paint this chair and give it back, as a gift to my friend." However, during this process something in me was also dying but in other form. The life I was leading, everything I had been witnessing, a world full of aggression, of intolerance, working for others just for some money?
There is always a choice to be made, do we want the world the way it is today? Its systems? Or do we want to be free to pursue our dreams? Is money everithing? IIthought, "is death the liberation of all I was going through and feeling? Would this be the solution? " Not for me. I prefer art.
When I stopped to think what to do with the chair, I first grabbed a paper and tried to scribble something, but nothing interesting came out. I started to think about creating a central figure, which could represent death as well as life. Representing all. That it would be the center of wisdom and that would already have a maturity above the rest. And surrounding world reality tensions, the oppressions that we do not see, but feel in a big city. And the chair represents the resting, the thinking, the simply existing.
I ended up redoing the weld at the base of the chair and used the matte black electrostatic painting. I bought new wheels. I sanded the entire seat varnish until it turned white.
First I made a draft in pencil and then let my hand run. I bought the Posca pens I had just discovered and started to paint. I was really anxious and wished to finish soon. I found myself painting and drawing for hours, and days, and immersed in that forgetting everything else. I felt myself as the happiest person in the world. Finally I was feeling myself alive.
After these days reconecting to my self, I had to go back to the election campaign. I got very stressed and ended up misunderstanding myself with some people. I no longer saw any sense in what I was doing there, and that way of life no longer interested me. I was somewhat desperate because I needed the money, but I wanted to return to art, which I should never have left. Aware that I still had two more months of work my only thoughts were how to change this.
Suddenly I received a call from Brazil's greatest art channel to work during a few months as a video reporter. So I thought, "Wow that's incredible !!! I believe I'm on the right way!
I finished the election campaign and went to that channel. Meanwhile, in my spare time, I worked intensely on the chair.
The year ended and once again I was called by the channel for a new season. I learned a lot from all matters that I did and, in this, I realized that I was undergoing a major change process, going back to something that I had given up.
I was like the chair that was lying there in a corner and who had also given up on her, except that it was restored now. Maybe the world was conspiring in favor of my devoting myself to art.
When I finished the chair all my anger and hatred against everything that I had lived was there, but also all the joy, the emotion, the excitement of what is new and that only art could do, were also there.
I imagined that I would have to work like crazy trying to earn money to be able to return to painting in the future, at the age of 60 or 70 years, but I changed this and have started to live my dream at present.
Now I'm eagerly painting every day to complete a collection and try to make my first exhibition.
P.S.: After i finished the chair, I discovered that her design was made by Philippe Starck for Kartell
