Communication, mixed
media on watercolor paper, Antonio Pessoa 2007, could
be seen as just another artwork by the artist, however
the title leaves enough suggestions, loose ends, arrow
keys to navigate related to the frequently asked questions,
a dimension of legitimate curiosity where the public,
local or worldwide, wishes to know more and more about
an artist project, systematically updated, collecting
a punctual interesting selection of information, the
classic guide for art lovers, art collectors, art gallery
managers, art curators and public in general, providing
them with substantial lines to be and being kept informed
about what's happening with Pessoa's life, career, work
and events. Since 2003, Antonio Pessoa already living
in Barcelona, Spain, the internet oviously came up and
turned out to be another magical and powerful communication
tool, providing the artist's closest collaborators with
a rather interesting and direct way to tell the world
about Pessoa's on- going events and all sort of valuable
information concerning his artitic and even personal
life. Antonio Pessoa at the beginning clearly not particularly
interested, to say the least, in the internet scene,
step by step became convinced of the wonderful communication
stream of the cyberspace nowadays. If Antonio Pessoa
wasn't after all destined to paint live, as it was his
primary purpose at the very beginning of his career,
at least now he could be in contact with a great amount
of public, mainly in Google, as we all know the most
consulted and popular search engine in the internet
world so far. Therefore, from then on, Google, Yahoo
and Msn indeed helped tominimize the time required to
find information about Antonio Pessoa out and abouts.
When this internet exploring firat experiences took
place, Pessoa was going through a rather complicated
and complex emotional period due to his personal life,
to such an extent that at a certain given point he could
hardly manage and handle his studio work on his traditional
daily basis, actually slowing down his art production
almost to a dangerous situation of total paralysis.
For the first time in ten years, Antonio Pessoa was
clearly showing signs of obvious lack of interest in
art making, proportionally to the great action time
golden years of his remarkable Romantic Period fine
art performance. Nevertheless, the show had to go on,
and despite the emotional whirlwind, Antonio Pessoa
had to make a supreme effort and get rid of a great
deal of inner contradictory forces in order to get back
up on the road again and start from the scratch, one
way or another, anything but surrendering to the evil
powers of negative thinking up to cripple his fierce
creative spirit. In order to star dealing effectively
with the stressful rhythm of the big city and the contemporary
art scene life, Antonio Pessoa definitely needed a nice
warm bath of courage and at the same time an urgent
immersion in the stimulating positive bubbles of daily
art working time. Antonio Pessoa got back down to work,
back down to earth, with the will power of someone determined
to create a new version of his unique lifestyle. While
the internet communication and information operation
began his close encounters with the contemporary art
scene world, Pessoa kept on overcoming his painful emotional
blackout the best way he knew how, defeating his inner
ghosts with the sword of a remarkable straightforwardness,
at last dealing with the infirmity quite successfully.
Only two years later the artist finally broke up with
the old masters persistent influences giving birth to
a brand-new stamp in his oeuvre. The New Era ! By this
time the online communication flow had already gone
a long way with the talented collaboration of several
web designers, young emerging art critics and a new
vision of interesting possibilities in the art information
field. Antonio Pessoa was coming out of the dark shadows
of his studio to the limelight of the cyberspace and
therefore exhibiting his life and artwork to a much
wider and eclectic educated crowd of art lovers and
public. That's the least we can do for all simply adore
contemporary art, provide them with all information
available, building up a system of online communication,
a labor of global sharing just to be rewarded by witnessing
with great satisfaction how art lovers get deep enjoyment
from knowing more and more about an open book sort of
artist, Antonio Pessoa , a man who truly understands
that art expression nowadays and more than ever must
go beyond the framed canvas and galleries walls, straight
into the worldwide public awareness, judgement and criticism,
a flying satellite equipped with update art life information
reliable reports. Internet allowing fine art and even
the artist's personal life as a whole connecting with
the world, seems to be unquestionably a healthy and
supreme attitude towards the thousands and millions
of all of them art lovers, after all the ones who actually
make possible and a fact the increasing fluxus of the
contemporary art scene.
