I’ve talked about czech artist, animator and director Jan Švankmajer around here. This one painting didn’t have to be his portrait, since its most interesting trait (the change of appearance if seen through blue translucent material) doesn’t depend on that, but I decided to pay him a tribute. Besides, this work’s “message” ends up having something to do with his art.

Truth is I end up indirectly “paying a tribute”  to several friends with this drawing. Fabiana Peixoto, for showing me some stereoscopic images not so long ago, which certainly incubated in my mind ideas like the one of this painting. Clara Percílio, for introducing me to Jan Švankmajer’s work and, mainly, for making me have the first contact with the maxim “The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success“, which somewhat is this work’s message and, at last, my great friend Arthur Soares, and his blog A Insanidade, whose name I ended up seeing while thinking of what to write on the drawing (my original idea was to write something in czech, maybe Šílení but looking at the blog gave me the  insanidade/sanidade – insanity/sanity – idea). Here is the piece:

Here I tried to simulate how the work looks like when seen through blue translucent material, like acetate, celophane paper etc. Depending on the material, it may be necessary to see through two layers to obtain the desired effect.

P.S.: There are several ways of exhibiting this piece: changing ambient light color, making a “curtain” of blue cellophane, even using regular 3D glasses and closing eyes alternately is interesting. In the only exhibition it was showed so far, glasses made with paperboard and cellophane paper were used, designed in a way it can be inferred they represent “success”.