LONG LONG ROAD

After exploring the theme of immigrants in the artwork and living the life of immigrant partially too, what all the time stroke me as the most fascinating and most tragic part of the story was the road. The immigrants on the way to USA or Europe need to cross the desert, cross the sea, run from the border control. In these situations they are as fragile as little figures made of cotton and wood crossing vast areas. I created these figures using natural materials and filmed them continually in different locations – mostly natural environments in USA, Portugal, Spain and Slovakia. 

USA.

THE PRICE OF WATER

Project “The Price of Water” is an interactive video-installation based on stop-motion animation. The animation is created by rather unusual technique:by continuous repainting of the same canvas. The video represents water seller from Mauritania who repeatedly performs simple action – he takes plastic bag,fills it with water and lays it in front of him to be sold. This simple activity of the seller, dressed in traditional clothes is intentionally portrayed as a form of a ritual – to question the value of the water. In dry land as Mauritania, water could have higher value then oil.

 

THE BAY PLAY

During my stay in San Francisco in 2010 and later on in 2011 in Berkeley and Bay Area I created a serie of site- specific works. These can work separately, but also together as a way of mapping the area through small interventions in a playfull way, where the locations served as a first inspiration for an idea.

100 SMALL HURTS

The reconstruction of the Skoda 100 L MB created for an exhibition Voices from the Center at threewalls gallery in Chicago.

TRAFFIC JAM

This exhibition is an experiment: to look at the world from an economic perspective. The view with makro lens, capturing the whole landscape; buildings cars banks boats crowds. The personal is lost: It is an attempt to portrait the world, an such an attempt will always fail...

IF THE POWER OF WORD COULD HOLD A MAN

My work is in many cases a reflection of actual: what I read and what I see in newspapers, internet

and television. The 90% of human catastrophies, natural disasters, political scandals turned into

my almost everyday doping - a resource for false feeling of being present, being THERE.

The death of human somewhere in between of the lines becomes banal in the multitude of cases.

But if the report about that death would not be spoken out loudly, would it be better?

I decided to create this work about it, referencing specially the cases of illegal immigrants risking

death trying to cross the sea dividing Africa and Europe on fragile boats.

In this work I translated the situation of worldwide news into one simplified equation: If the power

of words can save a man, then I can build a boat from newspaper and sail through the sea.

SHANTY TOWN AT CORONA HEIGHTS

Today´s world economy cannot be divided into independent sectors, it works like one big, organic worldwide cloud. Everything is related.

One cannot find real shanty town in San Francisco, but Bay Area industry certainly has some influence over urban areas in developing economies worldwide.

So I believe, that San Francisco should have shanty town, although just a miniature one. In a shanty town spirit, it is built from reused material, mostly cartoon and it is situated at not habited spot of the city, raw, wild looking Corona Heights.

SKIER IN COVA DA MOURA

This painting of the skier was installed in Cova da Moura, neighbourhood in the periphery of Lisbon habited mostly by people from Cabo Verde. The person who moved from its country of origin to culturally different environment is sometimes like the skier in the city, or the skier in the summer: using the tools he has in inappropriate situation. More than to show this work to the audience of gallery, i wished to bring it close to the people, who it is talking about...

I would like to thank to people from Associacão cultural Moinho da Juventude (specially Lieve and Mimi) and people from Cova da Moura for their support and enthusiasm. Big thanks to Mariana Ribeiro for her help.

WHERE IS MY HOME?

The house 10 x 10 x 7 cm made from light wood is currently travelling over different cities of the world. Each image represents one place for momentary settlement, many of them remind me my vision of home. But no one is the definitive one.

This is a work in permanent progress.

(photo captured on the beach in Barcelona, Spain)

RE-CYCLED MEMORY

RE - CYCLED MEMORY, the work realized for project "Voices from the center" created by American artist and curator Janeil Engelstad. This "oral history project" was presented in Zilina Stanica (SK), the works related and the posters of the artworks were presented in Kosice and Bratislava. Project "Voices" is a serie of interviews with Slovak, Polish, Czech and Hungarian personalities and people of different professions about their life before and after the fall of Berlin Wall.

Click here to visit the webpage of the project "Voices from the center"

Click here to visit "Re-cycled memory" blog, flying fish contribution to the project.

www.re-cycle-memory.blogspot.com

click here to visit "All the streets", the blog about Mariana Ribeiro´s contribution to the project.

PARADISE IN STATE OF EMERGENCY

Exhibition
PARADISE IN STATE OF EMERGENCY
31.10. - 04.12.09 in KUBIKGALLERY, Porto
http://www.kubikgallery.com/ ,

http://paradiseinemergency.blogspot.com/

DRAWING FOR FILÓ

Flying Fish participated in international show `projectáveis/projectables` at Bienal Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brazil with work:

DRAWING FOR FILÓ

http://www.bienalmercosul.art.br/projetaveis/node/9
http://www.bienalmercosul.art.br/

HOME

HOME is a public space intervention created by van driver. In real time on the street, using recyclable materials, a house is build. Visitors are invited to enter and mail the available postcard by simply placing it in the inside surface of the house walls.
home premiered on October’s 3rd 2009, at Rua Cândido dos Reis, Porto, Portugal, on the occasion of street festival "se esta rua fosse minha"organized by the venue Plano B.

REGATTA DE BLANC

I wished to paint the boat on the sea, as it is not any boat, I saw, as it is not any conrete sea, I saw, just a symbol of all. I painted it, because i missed some beauty, some simplicity in the city of London and I left it on the wall to share that with the others. I passed by bus everyday those wooden walls of abandonned modernist building: On my way to work: from immigrants neighbourhoods, around Waterlloo and southbank centre, to the luxurious heart of the city.

(Regatta de blanc is the song of The Police. There are no lyrics in this song.)

THE NIGHT

This video - performance was realized with Mariana Ribeiro in Valencia, Spain. THE NIGHT represents a night of one couple: the physical story: dressing, undressing, watching television and sleeping. The psychicall story: dreams. Dreams are for me not just an escape of our mind into another reality, it is also time, when our mind wish to express itself directly. I used dreams of a couple, shown in a television, to express, what i wished mostly to tell, but my usuall artistic tools were not allowing it.

It is not without an importance, to peform this action on the street: to show the night - intimity life in a public space. The banality of this night story is parallel to other lives: lives of spectators too.

THE CONCERT FOR THE GREAT COLD VALLEY

The guitar - improvised piece "CONCERT FOR THE GREAT COLD VALLEY" was played for the mountains. It was also an attempt of portraiting the enviroment: can be the music a tool to portrait the place, to express it?
Can it be a mean to create a dialogue between man and mountain?

THE MILLION STARS HOTEL

THE MILLION STARS HOTEL, 2007
Oil on canvas, 2 x 3 m
Video, 10 min
10 drawings photo reproductions
All the landscapes i painted from my memory are a reflection of a first one, the primary one. I decided to stop searching inside and went to meet the real one.
I traveled to the Atlas mountains in Morocco, not satisfied with the exotism of the desert until i found the valley, similar to one in slovak mountains Tatras on a first view, but strangely magic on the second one. Everyday i walked up the hill and i met the local people. This changed my
position of tourist.
The valley formed the people and by planting wheat, people have formed the valley. The movie is showing them as a part of an absolut topography of the space. The relation, that grown between us brought another meaning to the work.

MISSISSIPPI

Mississippi, 2006
wood

10 x 9 x 0,5 m

On the place, where the dry tree formally created
a shadow, i placed pieces of the tree cut in the center. On the slope, the contours of the tree form a river, that is running into the place of the tree roots.

THE SKIER

The performance, or just painting on the beach of FOZ in Porto, Portugal concerning the feelings of a Slovak living in Portugal . . . and how is it to ski on the sand..

THE BALCONY

The installation BALCONY talks about feelings of a stranger in city of Aquaba, Jordanie. The presence of US army boats, that you can recognize in the video make this feeling stronger. Few days after i left the country, there was a rocket terrorist attack against these boats. My position at the balcony represents my true role in the space: the one of turist and distant observer...