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No. 19. Voice From the Studio. The Newsletter of The Art of Felix Berroa. Marietta -Atlanta-, Georgia, May, 2007

DRAWINGS, MY STRONG AREA

By Felix Berroa

- First Part -

"Traveling Gird". Acyilic and oil on canvas. 24"x30". 2007. Stretched canvas, using the system of "gallery wrapped", staples only in the back.	"Traveling girl 2 ". Acyilic and oil on canvas. 24"x30".2007. Stretched canvas, using the system of "gallery wrapped", staples only in the back.

"Nido de Pajaros" (Bird's Nest)

Note: "New Drawings" are no available for sale now. They are all created in large sizes. At this moment, the smallest of those drawings had 40"x40". All are created in an unified subject -that you will be know in a few months-, and therefore, they cannot be dismembered by selling individual pieces at this time until they be primary exhibit in a gallery to the public. They are schedule to be show in the Dominican Republic or Atlanta. The art sales like those that take place in the outdoor shows, wetsides and newsletters, help to support the economic factor of "new works", "new experimentations" in which the artist gives his/her maximum capacity, as is the case of these "new drawings". That need many hours of work, at lease, 10 or 12 hour per day. Big artists in the art history sold smaller works to support their main objectives in their difficult creative life.

The New Drawings

The drawing and wood carving has always been my strong point since my beginnings in my original city. I was born in a poor family in an small town called San Pedro de Macoris, origen of great men, as Pedro Mir in the poetry, and Sammy Sosa in the baseball. I attended school in the morning and in the weekends I shining shoes in the main park located in the downtown to get some money and buy me materials to draw, paint and to sculpt in wood and commun stone as a self taught. As a self taught I make my first drawings, paintings and sculptures show in 1967 when I was 16 years old, in the Athenaeum located in the Town City Hall of that city, San Pedro de Macoris.

1967 El Caribe (Newspaper)	1967	Wood Carving - Tallando Madera - 1966

In 1970 I moved to the capital city Santo Domingo, where I begins my art studies in the National School of Fine Arts in the afternoon. At the same time, in the morning, I begin another study in a different school, taken a two years career of Wood Carving. In the Fine Arts School I studied about six years. Quickly those studieses gave strengh to my works.

1970			1977

Additionally to these two studies, in 1975 I begins other career: "Art Education" at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, UASD, that enriched my Art Theory and Art Philosophy, especially with the teachings of those subjects by the National Poet of the Dominican Republic, Pedro Mir.

Around 1975 returned to Dominican Republic an artist that had studied in New York the most advance technical outposts of “print-making” (Rosa Taverez), and she was incorporates to teach at the National School of Fine Arts. I was one of her students. It seems to be that my ability and dexterity in the wood carving and drawing had helped me to becoming one of her outstanding student in grabado (print maker), especially in the techniques of "wood-cut".

Rosa Tavarez	Wood-Cut - 1976	Wood-Cut - 1976	Pedro Mir- Wood-Cut - 1976
Wood Cut. 1978	"Uracan". Dry Point. 1975.	"Entre Polvo". Messotint and Etching. 1076	"Entre Polvo 2" Wood Cut. 1976.

Already in 1977 I did my first exhibition in Casa de Teatro, located in the capital city of the Dominican Republic and where I obtained my first newspaper art review for Marianne de Tolentino. From that point many doors were opened, especially a first prize with a wood-cut in 1978. That prize was "a ticket" to accompany the "Dominican Republic Delegation" (of around a hundre persons) in a trip to Jamaica and La Havana, Cuba to attend a festival (11th World Festival of Youth and Students).
In 1979 I obtained a grant to travel to Puerto Rico and take an advanced study of the most important techniques of print-making, as Silk Screen (Serigraph), Etching, Messotinta, Colorgraphy, Lithography, etc., plus Experimental Drawing. Those studies gave a touch of excellence to my drawings and prints making, confirming me in those area in the art environment.

Print Maker Felix Berroa. 1979.	Etching - Messotint and Etching. 1979.	Etching - Messotint and Etching. 1979.	Wood Cut. 1979.
Etching - Messotint and Etching. 1979.	Lithography. 1979.	Lithography. 1979.	Linolium Cut. 1979.
Linoleum Cut. 1979.	Experimental Drawing with Collage. 1980.	Experimental Drawing with Collage. 1980.

I had only one problem: the framing of works the paper. Since always I used full sheet paper (22"x30", plus the mat space), the framing was very expensive. Framing a work on canvas is much more economic because doesn't need glasses, and in some case don't even need frame. Glass need mold. Mold was to expensive, so that was my main problem, specially if I used two paper sheet 22”x30” to create one work of "30"x44" or 60"x22". So, in the Dominican Republic I used clear plastic stretched and stapled in the back side of a "gallery type framing" (board of playwood supported with wood in the back) for my drawing and prints.

When I arriving to United States, the sizes of my drawings got largest. I used two, tree, four, five and six sheets together in one work. Starting from 1988 I exhibited them in two or three galleries and two museums in Long Island, New York. Glass look to be to danger for a large work like that, and “Plexiglas” was to expensive, so I framing then in a gallery type frame protected with clear plastic, as I did in my original country.

Pen and Ink on Arches Paper. 30"x110".- 1988 (Donated the the Museum of Modern art in the Dominican Republic).	Pen and Ink on Arches Pape - 30"x66". 1988	Pen and Ink on Arches Pape. 30"x88"- 1988

Discovery Gallery, Glen cove, Long Island	Nassau County Museum of Art, Long Island, New York

Trying to solve the problem, in 1988 I created my drawings on canvas and protect them with varnish.

Drawing on Canvas. 1989		Drawing with waterly acrylic on Canvas. 2003	"Elissa". 1999. Drawing and waterly acrylic. Sometime, I like to confirm my hability realistic drawingwith the human figures.

This email is not individually mailed, but thru a systematic massive selection in my computer. If you wish not to receive this Newsletter, Reply this email allowing me to know it. --- Este email no es enviado individualmente, sino mediante un sistema de selección masiva en mi computadora. Si usted desea no recibir este Newsletter, devuelva este correo dejándomelo saber.

Previous Newsletter No 20: FAUSTINO PÉREZ INTERVIEWS FERNANDO UREÑA RIB

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MY STATEMENTS:

"The subject in Art has to be found
in the happiness and in the sadness
in the well-being and in the pain
in the beauty and in the ugliness
in the maternal love and in the passionate
in the smile of a child,
or in the softness of an old man.
In short, The Life, the Dreams and Death of all human beings."

Felix Berroa, 1981. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

 

"To understand an artist it is not enough with being able to appreciate his art technique. To conform to that will be walk half way through a path with forms without any concern of what there may be said. That will be to conform alone with the very organized "matter" on a canva, paper, wood, etc. Any GOOD DECORATOR with a basic drawing, painting training and some imagination can do that. To understand an artist you need also, in addition to the technique, to face his statement in his works, to classify it and to evaluate it. For this is necessary to READ HIM (the artist), through his distance traveled in his lived enviroment and the way he had incorporated those experiences with his feelings in the Art."

Felix Berroa, 1995, Long Island, New York.

 

For those who not yet have read my biography, I'm a mid 50's years old artist.

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All works published here are copyright 1987-2007

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Felix Berroa

Felbere@hotmail.com

Tel. 678-355-1473.