Atlantis - Ogni mod seahorses

  Título/Title: Atlantis - Ogni mod seahorses (Myths Collection)

  Ano/Year: 2011 

  Técnica/Technique: Mista s/ tela (Mixed Media on canvas)

  Dimensão/Dimension: 60x80 cm

  Autor/Author: Fernando Serrano

  Preço/Price: contact me 

  Materials: Acrylic, oil, varnishes, china clay, marble powder, incense and canvas

More than a simple painting, this artwork represents a journey, an ancient living, when the artist returns to his Atlantis. With a mixed technic, using Acrylic, oil, varnishes, china clay, marble powder and incense, ‘Atlantis – Ogni Mod Seahorses’ tell us a story, this story…

Return to Atlantis

It was the finest of all mornings and I was returning. Coming from other places, brought by sunsets and moonlights, the body covered in salt and the mouth full of sweetness of so many stories I had to tell. Today it was the day of returning to my City of Water, the perpetual source of who I am.

As I approached, seen from afar, the Pillars of Hercules almost discovered by dawn as a crystal clear body. It seemed as if mistakes and certainties exchanged places and the doubt of so many questions that lived in me all along, were answered right there, written there, in the magical speechless towers. It was the return to the perfect curves, the centre, the road that ran towards the sea in the map of the ancient kings of the seas.

The word 'Return' had brought me exaltation, I felt as a child who does not know how to forget the promise, as a poet inspired by his Muse of the Water, as a composer that adding some notes knows has set the perfect melody… I knew and I could see a brand new line drawn in the palms of my hand, as if faith was changing and I was but a spectator of myself.

From afar, the city stood still. We followed the same road, she and I. The floor covered by cloth, ice that the sun had melted, the centre of all wisdom and the light in my heart… my ground. This is my home, my city, my return. My aquatic roots immersed in pleasure, more than novels could tell or illusions could pretend, the bead of silver that hold me since childhood, this is my logic.

It had been the largest crossing, my search of Midas and the ripening of who I am from the inside out. I had promised my mentor to return when the sea permitted the newborn horses’ ride… and so I did. I put together the clearest and most meticulous plan, waiting to embrace this deep blue ocean, I felt as an explorer, a lustful, violent demigod, who returns to Olympus, the Lord of all Causes, man and fish in the same body, empowered by Poseidon.

Here, under these same eyes, her splendour was huge… The walls coated with gold shining down the sun, mountains bright as fire, the architectural beauty radiated in the magical city, an emotion sculpted through my chisel and memory. That desire to float as a gondolieri through the channels, crossing all the bridges, dispersed as a boy running to become a river again... How small I felt before these white, black and red stones that taught me everything!

Through the path behind me I had left so many destinations, voices as echoes, stops and constructions, people… Endless conversations about life, fights and peace, money and smells, disputes without any purpose, endless hours… a force that led me, the same strange force that was by my side in the song of return, the voice of the city of thousand fountains, clean lines around my Quadrangle, the centre of this circle.

In a single day, the morning was apotheosis, the stroke of a brush that lead the mermaid into the Deep Blue. The day of my return was special to me and to all of the atlantes, it was ‘Ogni Mod’ seahorses celebration. In our City of Water we have festivals in honour of our marine brothers, all those who, like us, live in harmony and love, the seed of Gods.

I approached one of the fountains and I touched the most precious of liquids. In a smile I submerged my hands and washed my face, and my long hair. That moment was eternal,I closed my eyes and was taken by imagination...

I imagined a canvas, neither large nor small. I imagined it in shades of blue, as the sky, like the ocean, in its most perfect reflection. These blue shades were more and less smooth, with greater and lesser depth, as the Lord of the Seas had created. There were courses and pre-destinations for us, the ones always leaving and arriving.

I imagined rain in a blue-gray to greenish sky. I imagined pearls at the bottom of the sea and sea horses dancing. I imagined micro-islands and whirlpools calling me. I imagined symbols and our writing completing them. I imagined my face in harmony and love, here and now, in this magical place. And finally, when I saw its whole in me, I promised that one day it would be painted.

I opened my eyes and inhaled the fragrance of home, as a voice beside me whispered ‘Atlantis, ogni mod seahorses’...

FSerrano w/ poetry and translation by GM