Hymn to Freedom.

13.02.201505.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Piano: Oscar Peterson

Bass: Ray Brown

Drums: Ed Thigpen

Heals the very soul every time! When in Winnipeg at the school of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, I was the only student not included in the mounting of Romeo and Juliet, the company’s first full-scale ballet since David Peregrine and Evelyn Hart had won the bronze prize in Varna, Bulgaria.

This music, this giant of a genius, this album literally saved my life.

I felt such shame at having been excluded; having been properly isolated and rendered invisible, one then had to proceed as though one’s exclusion was not the most hurtful rejection. The only thing that spirited me away from the abyss of self-implosion was this music.

A beautiful, male Jamaican-born nurse had given it to me on the second weekend of my stay in the city. He had played the album after his truly elephantine cock had just ravaged my soul and I did nothing but stay there in bed flying-without-moving – and he was a damn good cook too!

Years later, after Merlin’s passing, I sat in the corner curled up with sage entity mate, Daryll Newcombe – now dead of AIDS, at every performance of Oscar Peterson at the Bermuda Onion Jazz Club on Bloor Street between Bay Street and Avenue Road.

The Bermuda Onion had great atmosphere. More than that, it proved the only Jazz club in Toronto where one’s race did not preclude entry therein.

I was truly healed for being at those performances; I had survived Winnipeg and gone on to meet Merlin. I had to have attended each performance, for Oscar’s sheer genius had not only enriched but it had literally saved my life. So it was that, in later years, I was grossly disappointed by his glaring humanity.

His self-karmic issues notwithstanding, this was one genius of towering, staggering magnitude. Much of the beauty of this giant’s genius is how pure, simple and warmly enveloping it ever was.

Indeed, one has much to be fiercely proud of in celebrating Black History, Black culture, Jazz, because of shamanic healers of the soul like Oscar Peterson.

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Skater.

24.10.201406.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Acrylic polymer emulsion on Hardboard

113 x 69.8 cm.

Provenance: Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

About Alex Colville

Without doubt, one of my favourite Alex Colville.

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The Sacred Lake Fish.

13.10.201406.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Acrylic on Kraft paper

23.5 x 36.0 inches

Provenance: The Pollock Gallery, Toronto.

http://genuinemorrisseau.blogspot.ca/2014/10/2014-retrospective-kinsman-robinson.html

http://kinsmanrobinson.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norval_Morrisseau

In preparation of this year’s retrospective at the Kinsman-Robinson Gallery, I share one of my favourite Norval Morrisseau paintings.

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Figure With Rays of Light (Arctic Form III)

08.10.201406.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Oil on Canvas

127.9 x 152.4 cm

Provenance: Thomson Collection Art Gallery of Ontario

http://www.AGO.net

Not only is Lawren Harris my favourite member of the Group of Seven, this masterpiece happens to be my favourite Lawren Harris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawren_Harris

http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=2326

http://www.mcmichael.com/collection/seven/harris.cfm

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Moon & Cow.

09.09.201406.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

oil and synthetic resin

68.5 x 91.4 cm

Provenance: Collection of Donnelley Erdman, Aspen Colorado

This marvellous super Moon night, I thought it appropriate to again share Alex Colville’s sublime genius.

http://www.ago.net/alex-colville

http://alexcolville.ca/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Colville

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Pink Chair II.

07.09.201406.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Conté Drawing

3.5 x 4.0 Feet

Provenance: Artist’s private collection.

Though this drawing of me was completed before I left Toronto for Vancouver in 1994, I never did see it until returning to living in Toronto, from Montréal, in 2004. I loved it and still do. The work is my favourite George Hawken and, of course, as it is a one-of-a-kind and not in my possession; this, of course, makes it that much more covetous!

What I especially love about it is that whilst living in New York City in 1983, I dreamt of the drawing and didn’t, at the time, realise that it was me; the eye-colour in the drawing is the same as a very exotic-looking female past-life of mine about whom I often dreamt back then – especially when studying classical dance in Winnipeg prior to that (1980-82).

At the time of that dream of this drawing which was yet to be – I had not even yet met George Hawken, Merlin and I were staying in the Chelsea loft of Natch and Zammy, the Artistic Director and his dancer lover, who since passed of AIDS, of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

Of course, prior to leaving for Vancouver, I was happily ensconced in relationships with Daryll Newcombe, Gustavo Vadim – the masochistic art thief in Washington D.C. and Manhattan cabaret singer, Frans Bloem… plus a few others.

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Southeast Wind Foam Woman.

30.08.201407.01.2026 Arvin da Brgha1 Comment

Serigraph

40 x 40 in

Edition 40

http://robertdavidson.ca/

http://douglasreynoldsgallery.com/robert-davidson

http://www.kinsmanrobinson.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=3

I love the warm, soulful embraceable lushness of the oceanic blue.

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Seven Crows.

27.08.201407.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Acrylic polymer emulsion on hardboard

60 x 120 cm

Provenance: Art Gallery Mount Allison University Sackville, New Brunswick

Gift of Mr. Ross B.

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Yesterday I did lunch with a friend from Montréal and we then went to the AGO – Art Gallery of Ontario to take in the recently opened Alex Colville show. I paused and actually lost tears on seeing this masterpiece. I have always liked his works and was not familiar with this piece. This masterpiece manages to perfectly encapsulate the utter abandon one experiences when focussed in flying dreams. For me the moment was truly rhapsodic.

http://www.ago.net/alex-colville

http://alexcolville.ca/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Colville

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Pink Chair.

26.08.201407.01.2026 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Lithograph

3.5 x 4.0 Feet

Artist Proof : III

Provenance: I/III Art collection Arvin da Brgha.

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At the time, I was fast asleep and, of course, dreaming – after having riotously ploughed the artist late at night at his loft. The piece was created from a photograph – Polaroid, if I am not mistaken. Hard to believe that it was 24 years ago… phenomenal.

I especially love it because the artist exquisitely captures the expressiveness of both my feet and hands. Too, I love that my lids are collapsed on those soulful eyes whose vision captures such astonishing vistas of imagination and intellect.

Hey… modesty is of negligible worth.

Indeed, from Otto van Veen, to Sir Peter Paul Rubens to George Hawken, I am fulfilled for having been a muse and passionate lover.

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