SLEEP 12:12

January winter.

The past couple of nights seemed to blend in together when I began
working on SLEEP.

January was usually a cold dark month, and while this is nothing new, in a city still under lock down it felt worse.

For those abroad or in the US, Canada was late in getting the vaccine, so cities were forced to extend their restrictions longer. My city of Toronto ended up shutting down near the end of December.

I wasn’t sleeping very much, and restless for weeks.

Casually, I would notice my clock and see 12 :12 on it before going to bed.
It was something subtle that repeated for a few nights.

I continued to work on various small sketches but I wasn’t feeling much of a connection to what I was doing.

Some people are content with painting still life subjects or landscapes, I’m not one of those. My art supplies were also getting low and I couldn’t buy any more because of store closures.

The only thing that I felt interested in were shapes and form.
At the time I didn’t think very much of what I was producing.
There was a strong desire to get some practice in.

Many sketches were crumpled and thrown out before I settled in on a subject, SLEEP. There was an interest in doing a night scene since the lack of light seemed to dominate my existence. Creativity is a personal thing.

I had started painting as a need to explore ideas. But these were one of those moments where I was having my doubts. This path is not always smooth, as it can be difficult, strange, or erratic. I continued to move forward with it in spite of my reservations.

As I look back on this painting many months later,
I see, that the restlessness I was feeling was my creative intuition protecting my mind. The new lock down was having a detrimental impact on living.

It can be hard to see this when you’re in the middle of it. This inspired me to create a new series of paintings,which I’ve named SLEEPY WORLDS.

Toronto lock down restrictions were finally lifted on June 14, 2021.
The city has begun its reopening plan, and final vaccination shots are now underway.

Victor Ramirez

Under lockdown and SELF ANALYSIS

It has been a year since the Pandemic first arrived in 2020.
Most people were urged to stay in their homes, social distance from each other, wash their hands and wear a mask when you go outside.
We are all too familiar with this now, the new “reality”, and I am no different.

The painting Self Analysis developed quite mildly during this period.
I was finishing up some other projects previously when the Virus broke out.
The plans I had made previously began to change.
What was originally seen as a form of the Flu, began to take a sinister turn.
As like many, I was forced to work from home, and restrict my interaction with others. It was quite an adjustment.

The restriction of freedom in the name of public health was one I accepted.
But, one could not really be prepared for the length of time that this would occur.
The normal things I liked doing, eating out, shopping, and visiting friends and family were all taken away. The only communication I had of the outside world was through social media and television.
I was left only with my home and creativity.

The routine of being under lockdown was making me feel lethargic. Ironically, that is when it hit me, that the couch had become an island, and it was time to escape. The idea of fear and mental health started to resonate.

The fear was all around, from walking with my mask on and passing by people in the street, through to conversations I’ve had with others. Covid-19 had cast it’s shadow on world and each of us were dealing with it in our own way.

There was also the fear of expressing any opinions about it. The media had inundated everyone with information. The wearing of masks had become a political issue. What had become a health crisis has divided people. The mask for some had become a symbol of the oppression of freedom, and censorship. To others, it was been a lifeline of health, safety and survival. New Vaccines have come out to combat the virus.
The distribution to the public is still a contentious issue.

Here we still are in 2021, a moment in time uncertain when or if this will ever end.

Victor Ramirez

THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com

The Mind, Body, and Unrest of SPIRIT

The last painting, SPIRIT, was something I had thought about in one form or another. The stresses of daily life were difficult enough for me to think more about my mental health. It was through this that I became interested in meditation, and started to look at the human body differently.
Slowly, my interest in this subject would escalate over time. First, with my painting THIRD EYE, and then learning about the other Chakras of the energy body. I had originally thought about doing a series of paintings about the Chakras, but it never happened. I would come across many books as inspiration, including an old documentary narrated by Leonard Nimoy called The Human Aura: Documentary on Mysterious phenomenon.

The Human aura was something I was interested in. But just maybe, this idea was too esoteric for people to appreciate. The light body was an abstract concept, giving me some freedom for artistic experimentation. When the last painting for the SPIRIT series came, this felt like it was the right path to explore. I wasn’t really interested in doing a painting about Death, well, the skull and bones version of it. It was during this time that someone in my family about would have health issues. What began as a painting became a personal struggle.

There were many moments where I would start and then stop, wiping off the surface of what I had painted from the canvas and starting over again. This continued repetitively for a couple of weeks. There was a part of me that began to think that I would not finish, or of stopping this completely. But I continued to proceed forward, to keep working as it was the only thing keeping me together. Eventually, the health issues would subside, and the recovery process would begin for them.

I eventually returned to finish my painting, determined to keep going, with renewed purpose and appreciation of life.

Victor Ramirez

Seeing THE SEANCE

The Seance was a painting I had been thinking about for a long while. My interest in this wasn’t for artistic purposes. I remember seeing the posters displayed at carnivals for mediums. They were either illustrated or photographed, and you weren’t sure if they were real or not. This was at a time before digital was around. As a kid, we are very impressionable and one would tend to wonder about these superstitions. When we become adults, we outgrow these things and dismiss them as fables and folklore.They are just immaterial and not tangible. Some may look at religion in the same way.

Recently, I had become curious about these things again. Modern life with it’s technology had become cold. Digital is now the excuse to the answer to everything.
I was considering going in a more Victorian direction using models or friends at first. As the idea developed further, and after speaking to a few people, it began to change. One person I knew remarked, “ No F#&*g Ouija boards.”(No argument from me.) It was apparent how uncomfortable this concept was. I am sure some people that I knew began to think I was becoming an Occultist. The other reason was that the drawings I had done previously seem to intuitively draw me in on their own. After a few false starts, and getting out of my own way, it slowly started to come together. I had to divide it up in three parts to keep all the details.

One influence was this old documentary from the BBC called, “Science and the Seance”. The history of the Seance and Spiritualism. You can watch here, broken into four parts.

The photography of the late 19th and the 20th century also continued to inspire me. The magical quality of these old photos really captured something. You can see them for yourself and decide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0HncGNBCqY

I had finished my painting after a long period of working in winter darkness. The process of creating this was both challenging and comforting, unlike some other projects I had done.

Whether you believe in it or not, a healthy amount of skepticism is fine to have. There are plenty of frauds claiming to be mediums. For the very few that are real, they are unassuming and go unnoticed. The world comes with many prejudices. These type of things were mysterious and interesting growing up when I was a boy. As an Adult, it is nice to know they still are.
Victor Ramirez

*THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ*© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com

Love in a LUCID DREAM

She kissed me slow and deep. There was a familiarity to it I couldn’t deny, like we had done this before. Images flashed in my mind, about her and I having a life together.
Sometimes, I would be older and she would be younger, or sometimes it was the reverse. Her hair color would change every time I would see her. First she was a brunette,  then it she was blonde, or strawberry red. No matter how she presented herself, I knew it was her. All of that were just costumes. She was very mischievous in that way, knowing all my thoughts before I did. When she spoke, I couldn’t hear her voice but only see her lips move as one would in a silent film. The kiss felt emotional, happy, and sad at the same time. Goodbye.

Then, I had awakened, paused for a moment, only to ask myself just what the hell I am doing here. It was a dream. It was only a Dream.

For the next few days life would resume as usual. There was a tint of sadness following the next few mornings, workdays, and evenings. I thought about her for a while, yet didn’t know her name. I went to life drawing class in the evening like I usually do. While concentrating on drawing the model, they were playing ambient music in the background. I asked the Moderator of the studio what CD was this. He told me it was a mix, and mentioned some band which I can’t recall. It made me think of my dream and I began to work on this painting.

Most of the time, I would be visiting the parks, going for walks. I didn’t want to lose that feeling, looking for the same type of colors and plants that I saw in the dream. The fall season had just started around this time. I kept wondering who she was, but my memory kept coming up with nothing. In hindsight, I believe I was meant to forget, but she left  just enough for me to remember. The intensity of these feelings eventually faded over time. For a short while though, the dream felt more real than life over here. She was real enough for me to create this painting. I hope I see her again.

Victor Ramirez

THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com

Fragility in FAITH

This article is one I have been procrastinating on for some time, to speak about this painting, FAITH. There are times when real life and the creative life intersect each other. Those are rare moments, and often when they do, it is always in a unique frame of context, and sometimes not by choice. I don’t have the intention to create art in this manner. But once in a while, a situation like this does happen. FAITH was a painting that came from tragic circumstances.

Last year, there was a death in my family. It was very sudden, and we were all in a period of grieving. I won’t go into specifics, out of respect and privacy for relatives. This article is not about that, but about how this painting came to be. The events of this tragedy affected me, and the months that followed were very difficult. During this time, the most menial tasks of daily routine felt grim. Everything felt long and I was going through the motions, getting through the day, minutes at a time. When someone dies, it affects yourself and all the people around you who knew them. We all grieve, express it in many different ways, and sometimes, it’s not so obvious to everyone.

Most of this period was spent speaking to friends and family, grateful for their love, support, and the conversations we shared. These discussions lasted for many weeks, and some were also going through similar circumstances. I don’t remember an exact moment when I started working on art again. However, I do remember that it took a long time, with many missteps, stops and starts before getting to something. The theme of “bad things happen to good people” seemed to dominate my mood. It was all I could think of, and I knew that it was something I had to do, before I could move on.  I knew that things would never be the same.

It was out of this theme that I began to think about faith, and what it means to believe. I went through some sketches before I settled on one that spoke to me.

The process of putting this together felt very sombre , cathartic. Artists sometimes speak about their work as a form of therapy, a way to heal themselves. Writing this made me realize we tend to take these skills for granted. Creativity is not limited to making pictures. It is so much more than that. It heals the heart and the soul, for all alike. This has never felt more close to me.

Victor Ramirez

*THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ*© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com

Inbetween HAUNTED SPACES

Haunted Spaces was the fifth of a series of paintings called SPIRIT.

I was interested in doing a painting of the interior of a room with a fireplace. I have always felt drawn to fireplaces, the way they warm and light up a room. When this came up, it was an opportunity to do so.

The idea of a haunted room had been brewing for a while, but it had constantly been put aside for various reasons. During this time, I had been getting into looking at old furniture and decor. I really wanted to make a painting about a room and space.

A spiritual residual haunting of a person’s home is an intriguing subject. When someone’s spiritual energy is attached to a home, it comes from a violent traumatic death or emotional experience. The event is so painful and frightening that the energy imprints itself onto the home and the space inside. The emotional energy left behind can sometimes repeat the event over and over again like a film recorded loop. In some other cases, it can have its own separate, negative distorted consciousness, behaving in destructive ways.

There are many stories and documentation about hauntings, not all can be verified or denied. Some of the most famous hauntings like the Winchester hauntings and the Amity Horror house stand out to me.

Oddly enough, I was more focused on the whole design aspect of the room, particularly the fireplace. It wasn’t until I started looking at mirrors that I began to think about ghosts. The aspect of looking into the mirror and having the room reflect back at us, as the viewer, made me rethink how distorted things can be, both in life, and in death. Everything seemed to converge together after this realization.

I chose a large canvas for this, which measured ’36 X 48’ inches, almost life sized. The larger size felt right and I really wanted that feeling of space. The whole period of working on this painting felt very obsessive. I would paint every chance I would get, often cancelling other plans, and not going out at all on the weekends. There was this feeling of anxiousness to get it done, afraid that if I didn’t, I would lose it.

When it was finished, I felt a great heaviness was lifted and relieved. By then, I was left wondering if the painting I had done, had always been there. There are paintings you work to achieve, and then there are ones that create themselves. Haunted spaces was one that I felt was born into this world, and I was just here along for the ride.

Victor Ramirez

*THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ*© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com

Finding POLLYANNA

Pollyanna was a painting originally intended to be a color experiment. I was in-between projects and felt a need to do something different. A different enough piece that it was able to stand alone on its own. There was also this need to produce something that had a feeling of joy. Most of the paintings I had been doing up to this point had dealt with dramatic themes.
To work on a painting that had a lighter theme was much more challenging for me. All I could think about was the colors orange and yellow, which led to flowers, and finally to Pollyanna.

The term, Pollyanna, always seemed to be used with a tone of crass and sarcasm, when I hear it. People would tease one, calling them a Pollyanna as if it were a bad word. I looked up some reference on Pollyanna while researching flower designs for this painting.

Pollyanna, the word, comes from the 1913 Fictional novel “Pollyanna” of the same name, by Eleanor H. Porter.  The story is about a young girl named Pollyanna Whittier, who is an orphan and goes to live with her Aunt in a town called Beldingsville, in Vermont.
Her Aunt reluctantly takes her in, out of duty to her late sister, who had passed away.

Pollyanna’s philosophy of life centers on something she calls “The Glad Game.” She looks for something to be glad about in every situation, no matter how dark it may be. Her presence in the small town begins to change attitudes of the people who live there, and improves their lives.

While I didn’t read the book, the synopsis was enough to keep my interest in the premise of the story. I chose a sketch from my scrapbook and proceeded to go ahead and work on this painting.

One of the things I did differently, was to do my main drawing on Brown Kraft paper. Some of this was inspired by a teacher I knew who worked this way. The other thing was a different color approach, working my painting dark to light and building up on its layers.This painting came together rather quiet and peacefully. It was such a departure from what I usually do, and I was really happy with it.

My main concern was really about capturing a feeling more than concept. I thought about what a person such as Pollyanna might be like, her energy and how she radiated to me. How she could light up a room and make heads turn everywhere she went. All I could really do was imagine how this person might be like.

In all honesty, I can’t say that I really know anyone who was truly like Pollyanna. I imagine though, in life, we do sometimes need to find the Pollyanna in all of us.
Victor Ramirez

*THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ*© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com

DAYDREAM-The Book

It’s has been a long time coming.

I am very happy to announce the release of my new Softcover book,
DAYDREAM- THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ.

Daydream-The Art of Victor Ramirez is a full 8X8 color photo book which profiles Ten acrylic paintings from the Daydream series.

These works include CALM, FISHTANK, DECISIONS, THIRD EYE,
PARADISE VIEW, RED MOOD, THE SUBCONSCIOUS FOREST, MUSE, MORPHEUS CALLING, and DAYDREAM.

ALL BOOKS ARE PRINTED IN CANADA.

All paintings appear for the first time presented in this one volume.

DAYDREAM is available for pre-order on sale at ETSY.

THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ

#ArtofVictorRamirez #DaydreamBook #Daydream
#VictorRamirez

Victor Ramirez

*THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ*© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com

DAYDREAM Ends and Begins

DAYDREAM, same title as the series name, came about soon right after Morpheus Calling was finished as the last piece. Fresh from my exhaustive experience with M.C., I really wanted something simple to do. The original intention for this series was to do twelve paintings, but I scaled it down to ten.

There were many ideas, but they all felt numb to me at this point, no feeling and no connection. Before this, I went down to the Beaches in Toronto and contemplated what else I wanted .  There is something about the Lakeshore that always puts the mind at ease.

Starting this piece was about getting some closure, a resolution to all the work that had been done. I knew what the last piece was going to be, but along the way something had changed, and it became something different. The person who started this journey isn’t the same as the one standing in front of the canvas, before ending it. Which is more than an understatement than what people really know.

I came up with the initial composition after choosing a sketch, which I went ahead and worked on diligently.

The color rough came quickly,  and I dove right into painting it. When it was done, I didn’t give it much thought about what I had come out at first. I was just interested in taking time off and relaxing. This was finished in the late spring of 2012, and I wasn’t really in a hurry to jump into anything new so quickly.

The main figure’s eye glance looking off into the distance at something we can’t see, spoke to my feelings at the time about a dream’s end and beginning again.  Whatever time spent imagining  often would come without any idea where it was going, fighting against the mundane routine, the conformity of life, and ignoring its naysayers. One could only take a leap of faith without a parachute.

A daydream always seems to start with a glimpse, that which seems to be so far away. You can’t always see it so clearly, or not at all some days, but you know it is there. An idea that won’t go away, that keeps you thinking at all hours of the day or night. The one where some might ask, what are you doing?  What is that? Where are you going? Where you don’t have all the answers, so you work towards finding them, and it changes you.

Another dream rises up over the horizon,  distant, and at the same time very close. I can feel it, it is coming.
Victor Ramirez

THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com