Expansion and departure

!K-2. 40"x30", oil and acrylic on canvas, 2016/2024

I recycled two works from the Top 100 2016. The idea was that they would become part of this year's 100. The paintings departed from illustrating music by the !Kung Bushmen and became their own thing. Technically the Top 100 2023 should end around this time but I don't have nearly a hundred songs yet. We'll see what happens.

!K-1. 40"x30", oil and acrylic on canvas, 2016/2024

Number one in the list remained to be that song by Campa Indians from Peru. I have now completed 9 versions of the image, each starting with the same stencil. Here's number 8, that I had started last year.

Campa-8, mixed media on drywall, 12"x12", 2023/24

And number 9, just finished a few days ago.

Campa-9, mixed media on drywall, 13"x13", 2024

Top 100 2023

 

Ashaninka (Campa) Indian, print, a/p, 18x12 each

While the Top 100 2022 is up at the Top 100 Archive & Studio gallery, I'm experimenting with stencils and hope to come up with a concept for the Top 100 2023. I've been working with stencils a lot lately and I feel like creating the top 100 as an edition this year. The stencils could then also function to paint the full Top 100 as a mural, I don't know. It may be too ambitious to create 100 matrices (stencils) but I'll keep experimenting and thinking until I have a solid concept. A recording of a group of Campa women resides at #1 in the current top 100 for the time being. If I were to use this print, I probably dedicate to a recording made by Gerald Weiss in 1963 of a female Ashaninka solo voice, that is also in the list. I've painted the image before. I now learned that Ashaninka and Campa are the same people living in Peru in the Upper Amazon border region with Brazil.