With ‘THE UNIVERSAL SPACE PAINTING’, bie baldwin elbio creates a holographic experience
of interchanging and interspersed planes. A time- and space-transcending confrontation
between what the beholder has seen, what he currently sees and what he expects to
see; between what was, what actually is and what (possibly) will be. He not only
brings the ‘traditional’ form of painting forward into the 21st century computer
age but also creates a bridge between the different cultures on our planet. A time-
and space-transcending bridge between the past, the present and the future.
Each series of 24 ‘SPACE PAINTINGS’ in ‘THE UNIVERSAL SPACE PAINTING’ project is
linked to its own ‘home city’.
e.g. ‘THE BEHEADING OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST’ / MICHELANGELO DA CARAVAGGIO / VALLETTA.
- ‘LA BOHÈME’ / CHARLES AZNAVOUR / PARIS. - ‘LES DEMOISELLES D’AVIGNON’ / PABLO
PICASSO / NEW YORK.
In ‘THE UNIVERSAL SPACE PAINTING’ project, the space artist bie baldwin elbio embarks
on a purposeful and resolute, material, spiritual and artistic confrontation with
some of the most outstanding, iconic and universal masterpieces (both paintings and
musical compositions) in our world heritage and collective memory - masterpieces
by artists he considers as his spiritual and artistic mentors. However, in his own
inimitable, idiosyncratic style, he challenges these spiritual and artistic mentors
and throws an imaginary (read: virtual) bomb in their works of art. With the remaining
fragments of the original painting or musical composition he creates a series of
time- and space-transcending ‘SPACE PAINTINGS’. In each of these, he engages in an
artistic and spiritual struggle with the original work and its creator. . . .
For instance, in the 24 ‘SPACE PAINTINGS’ based on ‘LES DEMOISELLES D’AVIGNON’ by
PABLO PICASSO, bie baldwin elbio externalizes both the inner struggle affecting the
artist PABLO PICASSO as a pioneering genius (it took until 1920 for ‘LES DEMOISELLES
D’AVIGNON’ [1907] to be recognized by the art world as a fully-fledged, revolutionary
masterpiece) and the inner conflict experienced by the prostitutes of the rue d’Avignon
as pariahs of society.
. . . By means of his self-developed digital techniques, the space artist bie baldwin
elbio succeeds in crossing the analog boundaries of the second millennium by introducing
the traditional way of painting, with its age-old two-dimensional canvas, into the
virtual and digital age of the third millennium. He creates works of art transcending
(out of their own time- and space-transcending multidimensionality) the three-dimensional
restrictions of traditional painting. Whereas painters like Pablo Picasso and Salvador
Dali used canvas and paint to create their works, bie baldwin elbio (as a twenty-first
century artist) uses virtual space, together with the bits and bytes of his computer
program, to create and materialize his multidimensional ‘SPACE PAINTINGS’. The planes
of the ‘SPACE PAINTING’, floating in (the virtual) space like Alexander Calder’s
mobiles, make it possible for onlookers to move around the painting like the planets
revolve around their stars. They can even (as regards the monumental ‘SPACE PAINTINGS’)
move through the different planes and, thus, literally be absorbed by the ‘SPACE
PAINTING’. They can use their own mobile-phones to take one or more pictures of their
preferred viewing angles and send them directly to the artists’ website. In this
way they can both become an essential part of the world-embracing ‘UNIVERSAL SPACE
PAINTING’ and provide a source of inspiration for the artist.
THE UNIVERSAL SPACE PAINTING and the ‘BIONIC SIGNATURE’ : Finally, to materialize
the universal and unbreakable link between the various ‘SPACE PAINTINGS’ and himself
as their creator, bie baldwin elbio will sign each ‘SPACE PAINTING’ with both his
own DNA (see ‘THE - bio » « centric - DNA project) and a unique digital, internet
connected, code.