Man Changing into Thunderbird VI of VI

20150609_123817[1]

Oil on Canvas

© 1977 Norval Morrisseau

Provenance: The Leitz Collection,

Art Gallery of Ontario.

http://www.ago.net/

Love these works especially more so as they have been recently relocated within the gallery; they are better displayed now.  A true shaman of the first order, Norval Morrisseau.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Sick Room.

Sick Room Hugh Steers 1990

Oil on Canvas

38.1 x 40.0 Inches

© 1990, Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers.

One of the most poignant AIDS-related paintings of the last century.  Truly moving.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

The Architects Home In The Ravine

The Artchitects Home In The Ravine 1991

Oil on Canvas

200 x 275 cm

1991, Peter Doig

Provenance: Private Collection; sold at auction in London, England, 2013 12$m.

http://peterdoig.mbam.qc.ca/en/

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How did I not know of this creative genius before?  Well, apart from not being awash in multiple millions… I have watched this painting for the past several weeks truly enraptured.  Of course, thanks to the schadenfreude that was Evan Solomon’s demise – goodness, if you sneezed, it’s very likely that you would have missed it – I have finally found Peter Doig.

Of course, I don’t look at TV so his departure from CBC would have been more readily noticed.  Moral of the story: do not ever try extorting money from the rich… and a lawyer to boot – Bruce Bailey.  Goodness, what could he possibly have been thinking?  The greedy twat… adieu!  Goodness, I have not laughed so hard in long ages.

As Sunday is my birthday, I am going to be shaking tail feathers – it’s also Caribana  or whatever it is now called – and being feted over the next couple of nights.  Happy summer, sweet dreams and my but I love this Peter Doig painting.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Happy Canada Day!

New-Flag-Feb-10-2014

New Flag

Oil on Canvas

Charles Pachter

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Wheatland – Canadiana Suite – Oscar Peterson Trio 1964.

Piano:  Oscar Peterson

Bass:  Ray Brown

Drums: Ed Thigpen

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Oyster Catcher 5_91 Robert Davidson 2009 Serigraph

Oyster Catcher

Serigraph

24 x 30 inches

Edition: 91

© 2009 Robert Davidson

Provenance: 5/91 Art Collection Arvin da Braga.

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Happy 148th Canada – for more than half my life, I have had some truly remarkable, uplifting experiences whilst living here.  Too, I shared a great love with my Canadian-born task companion, Merlin.

Regrettably, I could neither find the dimensions nor year of creation for the masterful Charles Pachter flag which I would presume is an Oil on Canvas.

Happy Canada Day – my life experience has been immensely enriched for having remained focussed here in this great land.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Gordon and Janet, In Their Garden.

Gordon and Janet, in their garden

Intaglio

30 x 22 Inches

© 2006 George Hawken

I decided to see what an intense observation of couples whom I know very well would produce. I trust my own process enough to know that if I allow it to unfold naturally, the results will have a certain integrity – which I think this series does. This portrait, of Janet and Gordon Belray in their garden, references their commitment to one another in the face of serious health issues, and the hope that comes from the garden – a metaphor of restoration and continuation. I feel that the intensity of their connection to one another and their hopes for their children are suspended in this simple examination. – George Hawken.

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Had a most lucid astral plane encounter with George last night.  We sat at a deuce visiting.  For me, I have come to realise that whenever thusly situated on the astral plane, the encounter will be languorously rhapsodic.  Our eye contact was intense and direct and we hardly said anything to each other which, incidentally, was always the case when visiting in person.

George and I were lovers, long ago, and as I was then his muse our passion inspired the lithograph, Pink Chair, which has been previously shared on this blog.  I love this piece and on my return from living in Montréal, the artist was then working on this series of portraits.  I had hoped to have been included in the series but alas it was not to be.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps.

Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps exhibited 1812 by Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851

Oil on Canvas

146 x 237.5 cm

C. 1812 J. M. W. Turner.

Provenance: Tate Museum, London, England.

http://www.tate.org.uk/

Today, thanks to Mike Leigh’s deft and masterful vision, as if in a lucid astral plane dream spanning the spiral arms of time, I vicariously drank of William Turner’s very soul.  What a gloriously fitting work of cinematic art is Mr. Turner.  And what a rich artistic era, too, working with a cadre of giants like, John Constable et al.  More than that, thanks to his creative genius, Timothy Spall thoroughly ensouled his role; his truly was a masterful turn.  Joshua McGuire’s performance was riveting.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Exu.

Exu 1988

Acrylic, Oil Stick on Canvas

199.3 x 254 cm

© 1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat

Provenance: Private collection

Today, I shall see this show for the fifth time.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Apples and Lemons.

apples and lemons jmb & aw 1985

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, Apples and Lemons, 1985
Acrylic, coloured oilsticks and synthetic polymer paint silkscreened on canvas.
206 x 268.5 cm
Collection of Thaddaeus Ropac
©The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar,New York
©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, inc. / SODRAC (2014)

http://www.basquiatnow.com/focus/apples.html

http://www.ago.net/

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Today, I managed to have awaken from a long slumber of non-stop work shifts and multiple jobs and managed en route to another to slip into the Jean-Michel Basquiat show at the AGO.

I had missed the opening weekend and just did not want Black History month to end without having seen it at least once.

I was floored.  I had never before paid attention to his works because to see art reproduced in print and definitely online are quite another matter.  To have moved through this exhibition was the most lucid of flying dreams.

The Self-Portraits, Chinese New Year/Year of the Boar, Every Untitled work, the above collaborative work with Andy Warhol and most especially, Oreo, all provoked such wonder, and they each affected a deep soulful resonance.

What can one say, the man was an unparalleled genius and, most of all, he loved Jazz; he loved Charlie Parker!

I got on my Samsung Note 4 and texted everyone I know demanding that they haul arse toute de suite to be wowed.  My adorable sister will come to town on the weekend, to gaze and praise.  We’ll have a blast.

The sense of colour, attack and the unmistakable afrocentrism are what really moved me and above it all is this W. E. B. Du Bois quote which I had long forgotten; it sits beneath the description for the painting Black Soap 1981:

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

And how the lunatic racial predators love laughing their vapid skulls in seething grudge; indeed, Jazz has its roots in klezmer!

So very nice to see that the hunter has fast emerged in this millennium’s infancy as the prey.  Is it any wonder as their real and unwavering enemy rages terror on their civilisation that they turn around and grow even more resentful, spiteful, murderous towards us, thereby betraying their cowardice?

What can they do?  When for so long the racial predator has reigned supreme and unchallenged, along comes a genuine foe with an even greater sanguineous appetite for the hunt.

Keep whistling, you can’t possibly be preyed on.  Why should karma apply to the racial predator indeed?

This show has been a marvellous feast; it is one to which I will return and ravenously devour… time and again.

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Madonna and Child.

Madonna and child

Black and red chalk, pen and brown ink on brownish paper

541 x 396 mm

© 1522-25 Michelangelo Buonarotti

Provenance: Casa Buonarotti, Firenze, Italia.

Today as the gallery is closed tomorrow, I biked to the AGO – Art Gallery of Ontario to see the Michelangelo Drawings show.  I had been really looking forward to this show as the video by Hugo Chapman of the British Museum was informative and engaging.  Perhaps, it was the setting – I really don’t see the point of having had Auguste Rodin works combined with the show.  Seriously, less is always more.

Frankly, I think that the works should have been contained in one salon with lots of seating and darker, more soulful colours for décor.  White walls are so dense-energied and negative…  The only salon that worked was the final one where there were dark soulful walls; however, that look was marred by the garish lighting and imposing Rodins which truthfully I paid little heed to.  Frankly, I was underwhelmed by the show; one needed to be able to sit and truly savor the works of art.  Going from salon to salon with the frenetic colour schemata was disruptive and precluded one being able to have a great time.  For an artisan mood is everything.

Too, as these were sketches, there were times that they were unimpressive.  I am certain that there are truly masterful Michelangelo drawings in private collections; those on exhibit at the AGO aren’t among them.  The only one that moved me is the final piece in the exhibit which for me saved the experience, Michelangelo’s Madonna and child.  After having been decidedly underwhelmed, I came downstairs and went past the galleries of objets d’art to the private salon, took a seat and soulfully drank of Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents.  I always go there because the décor of the salon is just right.  The mood is set by the soulful tone of the walls and the just-so lighting.  Both work to enhance the power and richness of tones in the painting which is worth every penny of the 117.5$m that Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron of Fleet paid in 2002 at Sotheby’s auction.

Of course, I also take the time to give thanks when visiting the salon – it is akin to going to church for me… a think that I last did at my father’s funeral in August 2008.  Today, I sat there for about 45 minutes enjoying the Rubens masterpiece and was ever mindful that this creative genius is in entity two of my cadre – one of greater cadre 7, pod 414.

Merlin and I as task companions are in entity six of said cadre whilst in entity one of same cadre is Jim Henson who has since reincarnated and is female, London-born and plans a life on the London stage.  Too, that entity, 1, is host to Sir Anthony van Dyck who is currently incarnate my oldest friend and resident in British Columbia though Dutch-born.

Don’t know his casting as such things were not shared in the Chelsea Quinn Yabro book, Messages from Michael, but Michelangelo Buonarotti’s Overleaves are as follows:

A fourth level mature artisan in the passion mode with a goal of growth, an idealist in the emotional part of intellectual centre with a chief feature of arrogance.  

Happy New Year and the best in 2015.  I am grateful for your continued support and patronage.  Spread the word far and wide – this right here is the most inspiring, uplifting ode to shamanic realism of a joint on WordPress.  Sweet dreams you, you are more magical and beautiful than you know.  I love you more.

Interestingly enough, when I first began this blog, back in February 2013, I knew that there were dreams like those of Won’t Take the A Train and Cicada Principle that I wanted to share… that I have actually remained focussed this long and have had as many interesting dreams to share herein with you has served to make me realise how awesome this man Merlin was.

Merlin it was who said one night as he cuddled in bed at 20 Amelia Street in tony Cabbagetown,

“My darling, you are quite talented and this is quite the gift you’ve got… don’t ever forget that.”

At the time, we were speaking on the cusp of his final hospitalisation of his intention of doing whatever possible to send me dreams from beyond after his passing as he wanted me to write of him and me.  This coming year, I plan on spending less time on this blog as I put the finishing touches to said work; the story of shamanic Merlin and me interspersed with dreams aplenty many of which have not been shared in this blog.

Too, I plan on being very detailed on this blog in my recounting of my experiences with a former employer because falling prey to the racial predator is not something that one should be ashamed of or live in denial of.  This has been the one empowering takeaway from the Jian Ghomeshi scandal – I always thought him an absolute fraud.

http://www.casabuonarroti.it/it/

http://www.ago.net/

http://www.rodinmuseum.org/collections/collectiontheme/6.html

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

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© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.