Fortuna España
Acrylic paint, 22ct gold leaf and mirror on canvas, 1993, 150cm x 90cm.
Post modern Furniture Design
Spain, throughout history, has been a collection of provinces, like much of Europe. Rivalry between regions encouraged competition, pride and machismo.
There’s religion, a significant element of Spanish culture and loyalty to the local aristocracy. The Moors influence in the south said to have brought the bullfight. A ritualistic and symbolic destruction of the Beast. An arena where a man can try his luck by surviving the bull and elevate himself, be proud, have honour if only fleeting.
The Painting
- A horse signified prestige and a black and white spotted horse was the most prestigious. Loyalties divided regions, the land was split. This is represented by the gap in the green, where the upside-down horse is.
- Curiously, when I was in Spain I noticed polka dot design on womens fashion. Symbols of male potency and prestige had been transposed onto womens clothing.
- The horse is flacid. It emerges from a black square. Black represents ignorance and square because it is manmade.
- From the mouth of the horse comes a string of untruths. Represented by tainted, coloured dice. Dice representing luck.
- The eye of the horse is mirrored, a symbol of truth.
- Political division is represented by black and red, the colours of Fascism – the line that runs diagonally from the bottom of the canvas to the top. It is on the left-hand side of the canvas signifying the past.
- This idea that the left-hand side of the canvas represents the past is reinforced by the grey square. The colour grey signifies the past, square for manmade.
- Also, on the left, the bullfight is represented by the negative form of two back-to-back bullrings.
- A black bull’s horn, black for ignorance, makes a crescent shape with a star, signifying its origins in Moorish culture.
- The blood red shape of the bullring is just above this crescent.
- Towards the centre the notion of luck, Fortuna, is represented by purple as a ‘lottery ticket’.
- The 22-carat gold, eye represents the Cult of The Virgin. Only a male child is considered pure enough to play the part of the virgin Mary. The sign hovers above the land, above reality.
- The Crimson octagon signifies the aristocracy, Kings who are as rich as the poor are poor.
- Four yellow squares represent man-made truth and hope for the future.
The Furnitire Design
- After the bombing of Guernica in 1937 one of the few things left standing in the center of the town was an Oak tree. This Oak tree was a symbol of strength, defiance and hope. I specified oak for the structure in the design.
- The Elements from the painting were integrated into a modular seating system that comprised of individual elements or ‘provinces’ that fitted together harmoniously – the new Spain.
