Antonio Pessoa

Atlantis

"The Last Days of Paradise",oil on canvas,Antonio Pessoa 2002,as the title makes perfectly clear,unquestionably points out the artist's intuitive premonition of his astounding super productive Romantic Period's final countdown and inevitable mysterious and cinematic troubled ending. ATLANTIS,Antonio Pessoa's macro space art studio,stands today as thelegendary historical evidence,and symbol of the artist's most productive period up to now,during which an intensive and eclectic method of art action had thepower and ability to come up with one of the most gigantic and striking fine art collections of the twentieth century's last decade. This accentuated fact,furnished with an endless display of action movie,romantic comedy,even drama,plus erotic unspeakable episodes,mainly taking place in the dim-lit seductively designed and decorated ATLANTIS Studio,indeed gave birth to a wonderful,brilliant and encyclopedic art production,matching the great masters traditional modus operandi,conduct,lifestyle,maximized efficiency and outstanding creative commitment,where detailed academic research,highly elaborated projects of artistic performance,art action,passion and energy systematically aiming to create what indeed turned out to be and impossible made possible six years in a row super- human art production marathon. However,these accomplishments and success secrets,strange as it seems,still remain a public mystery despite all the reports and eventual speculation related to Pessoa's Romantic Period( 1997 - 2002 ) at the idyllic ATLANTIS art Home Studio. Despite the Romantic Period's ins and outs and ups and downs,the artist was well aware that on the whole he was living the time of his life,and getting a kick out of his daily intensive art making ritual and his bohemian city night life unspeakable adventures. Despite the fact that he was living and painting basically or even entirely apart from the worldwide art scene's ins,outs and abouts,another extensive variety of stimulation sources and resources were actually feeding his inspiration,motivation, and creative burning flame,arousing his organism to powerful art action in such a way which has made Pessoa's Romantic Period turn out to be an everyday mental process involving contemporary art versions of the twentieth century's reknown modern masters let alone new ideas and concepts the artist skillfully knew how to express on to his thousands of artworks,namely oils and acrylics on canvas,watercolors,mixed medias,drawings,sketches and even unique style interesting installations. Now the frequently asked question at stake concerns the connection between Pessoa's taking it global spontaneous footloose lifestyle and his unbreakably self-disciplined daily art-making implacability,serious approach,dependent upon solid values of artistic commitment and absolute devotion. This unsolved mystery,brain teaser riddle,mindbreaker puzzle,is still an on-going challenge even for me,for his closest friends,let alone all of them Antonio Pessoa's fans,clients,admirers,fellow artists and public in general. Far from being an over and out archived- investigation,Pessoa's Romantic Period What,Why,Where and How,still unavailable information summary,is a well alive issue and biographical thrilling process to such an extent that not even lyrical prose and appealing art reviews seem to succeed to cool it down and let it go,not at least for the time being. ATLANTIS,after all has been for the artist a once in a lifetime heavenly Paradise,fact and not merely an assumption,given the so many told and even untold signs available to invigorate this hypothesis,or more accurately a shared theory which is by now widely taken for granted. Thereby,purposefully procrastinating worldwide reputation and public recognition,Antonio Pessoa during his Romantic Period's six years of growing personal artistic realization and night life breathless explorations,strange and crazy as it seems and uniquely unambitious and ambiguously self sufficient as it was indeed,earns more than enough money to pay his three houses plus extravaganza bills and embrace fine arts enjoying the privilege of no interferences whatsoever,plus carrying on living a romantic-erotic-artistic lifestyle,lavishly staged,spectacular,Kafkanian...apparently without pondering whether it was worth the possibility of a bigger time spending investment in the complex boring process of a worldwide career situation and his art universal promotion. I can imagine how wonderful life was for the artist,when,as far as the world art scene was concerned,there was nothing to do therefore wonderful to wake up glad to know nothing had been left undone. Nevertheless,in the meantime,Antonio Pessoa without even being aware of it,is actually creating what a few years later was bound to become the heart and soul of his world reputation.The Romantic Period! ATLANTIS art studio was indeed Paradise! I suppose that's why it might have been a rather nostalgic moments time lost in the universe of recent memories and in the feedback of a present turning fast into past that Pessoa imagined and actually painted " The Last Days of Paradise ". Winds of changes were blowing across the Atlantic,just to put it in the best poetic way I know how,highlighted signs of emotional hurricanes and stormy chaos were showing up here and there and everywhere,sometimes disguised as a Celtic tale comedy-drama short episode,some other times indeed making way for a dressed to kill ruthless master of harsh reality.