- DEPTH ART -

Acrylic on vinyl
22 in. x 28 in

Price: U$ 500.00

A Man

of  Zen

With the essence of the most conniving flowers
In beauty, prepare the bath, Lídia.
The years wither and only in the body do you feel
Warm and pleasant the passage of life.

Do not say, skeptical, that the flesh is vain and passes away
Undone in shadow, the black river. The orc
Kidnapped Persephone surrendered to grace.
Perhaps in the afterlife, you will need your body.

Esteem it; and beauty more time
will be given by the fates in fleeting life.
The tepid water must scent of moss and rose.
From Paros must be the marble of the bathtub.

Naked and rosy, she immerses herself in the caress
Emollient of the perfumed water,
And the limp leaves of the limbs sprawl
Like a humanized aquatic flower.

Don't forget, however, in the love potion
of the water pour a soft oil of mallows
That makes your thighs velvety and shinier
the polishing of your scapulas.

And getting out of the bath like the goddess
Come out, from the soft wave in nacre,
Arise for love, silk statue
All covered with pearls of water.

Finally wears the most salacious night shirt;
With gold dust powder your hair.
And go to the alcove where your lover
Awaits you radiant and faithful as a mirror.​

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Painting: “the fire and the flood.”

      This is the same flower portrayed in “The Desert Will Bloom Like the Rose” painting. This is no longer a feeble and shy rose. Now, she reigns over the desert with its perfume, colors, and vitality. This is the soul who had retracted into pre-puberty. But now she has reclaimed the plenitude of being a sexual, sensual, and embodied fully mature woman.

          The title of this painting comes from a song with the same title by Vance Joy. I listened to that song every night when I was brokenhearted and in love with the woman who inspired this series of paintings. I happened to listen to the song every night because I was driving for Uber every night at the time. I always left the same radio station on. It was an acoustic song station. The station played this song every night. The lyrics of the music do not say much about my story with the woman I was in love with. But the title resonated very much with my feeling. The chorus line was:

           “You are the fire and the flood
           And you’re always in my blood.”

           It very much expressed how I felt about her. There was nothing in the world that did not remind me of her. That woman was the very nuclei of my cells. She was the fire that moved me to live. But, also the fire that burned me to ashes. She was the water that quenched my thirst. But, she was also the tsunami that drowned me.
However, I am not in the painting. In this painting, fire and flood are what the rose (or the woman) is for herself. She is her own fire. She is her own sun. She is the source of her own vitality. She does not feel threatened by the desert anymore. She has transformed the desert with her life force and her voluptuous emotions. Her body has become the dance of spheres ever curving, moving like a feminine Nataraja creating and recreating her universe with a dance of veils. Her curves intertwine like the circumferences of planets forming a solar system that emanated from her libido. It's the net of Indra. It’s a spider net. Her navel is Lilith, the Black Moon, a black hole, a source of forbidden emotions that sucks men in. Her nipple is a half Moon and half Blood Moon. The mother, the wife. la femme, a bitch.

​          Com a essência das flores mais coniventes
          Na formosura, prepara o banho, Lídia.
          Os anos murcham e só no corpo sentes
          Quente e fagueira a passagem da vida.

           Não digas, céptica, que a carne é vã e passa

          Desfeita em sombra, o negro rio. O Orco
          Perséfone raptou rendido à graça.

          Talvez no além precises do teu corpo.

          Estima-o; e à beleza mais demora
          Darão os fados na vida passageira.
          Tépida a água, rescenda a musgo e a rosa.
          De Paros seja o mármore da banheira.

          Nua e rosada imerge na carícia
          Emoliente da água perfumada,
          E as folhas lassas dos membros espreguiça
          Como uma humanizada flor aquática.

          Não te esqueças porém de no amavio
          Da água verter um brando óleo de malvas
          Que te aveluda as coxas e mais brilho
          Te dá ao polimento das espáduas.

          E saindo do banho como a deusa
          Sai, das macias ondas, nacarada,
          Ergue-te para o amor, estátua de seda

          Toda coberta com pérolas de água.

          Por fim veste a camisa mais picante;
          Com pó de ouro empoa o teu cabelo.
          E vai para a alcova onde o teu amante
          Te espera radioso e fiel como um espelho.

          Natália Correia,

          O Sol nas Noites e o Luar nos Dias II

          (Lisboa 1993) 244-245.

          Translation:

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