The Streets
“…Bakshi has remained a sedulously dedicated self-taught painter, and this body of work is as sophisticated as his films are outrageous. The Artist has created multi-media pieces that are emotionally layered works, and clearly a departure from his past figurative works. Bakshi builds up his surfaces with elements of wood, nails, and other found objects. The artist deconstructs the sculptural elements at some point during the process, and then uses the ravaged sculpture as a canvas, continuing to paint and repaint the accumulating textures, going deeper and deeper into what he thinks he sees. In this ongoing process of building up and taking away, Ralph transforms his reality into sculptured abstraction. Inspired by every single memory of his life in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Artist produces work that is as gritty, colorful, and dynamic as New York. Bakshi’s paintings are derived from a lifetime of loving the artistic peeling of the paint on old Brownsville walls; the play of sunlight on their surfaces that changed them every few minutes.”*Animazing Gallery
Bowery 1
Bowery 2
Broome Street
Spring Street
www.animazing.com/gallery/pages/show_bakshi_streets2010.html
To SEE A FULL LIST OF THE STREETS CLICK HERE
….Above you will find a review of the current work by Bakshi hanging on the walls in a Gallery (Animazing Gallery) in NYC written by someone who obviously understands and respects the work.
Here is another take.
A personal take.
Which by expressing here I might be shot – de-familied (is that possibly a word) – or simply be taken away from the running (and sometimes Not running…my apologies for the sporadic and intermittent Bakshi related information supply I vowed to make available to you guys) – especially after the glass of wine I have just had and thus, feeling quite uninhibited as to what I might say…what fun…what joy. But Alas…I have the password for our newsletter…and here we all are.
I just received an e-mail;
“Would you pleeeaaasseee send out an e-mail telling everyone about ‘Streets’
Yes – Of Course, consider it done
I reply.
I open the ‘Streets’ File and begin uploading, condensing, picking, looking…and hours later…an entire lifetime of passion, art, creativity, stories, history, love, loss, dreams, family and film have taken over my entire being. These paintings actually enveloped my thoughts and moved through my soul.
Became a part of a part of questions unanswered, balancing the equation of trying to understand the depth of creation which exists every minute in Bakshi’s mind. My fathers mind.
I have had the honor of a lifetime of watching him paint, film, draw, animate, paint more, construct, write, dance, sing, deconstruct. I have listened to the rant and rages against him. The evil doings, the brilliant happenings. The loving support.
I have listened to the stories of his life.
The rages of politics;
the beauty of the now;
the evolution of the world;
all through his eyes and the eyes of his wife Lis who is the only person in the world who balances him in strength, creativity and power and keeps him whole.
I have watched the films.
I have worked on the films.
I have sorted, organized, lived the art.
And ALL OF IT has been liquefied by himself and literally, I am pretty sure, been POURED into every one of these paintings.
The power is in each one.
I can see it, feel it, hear it.
It’s as if each street has it’s own story; And each story was kneaded and pulled and pushed and risen and baked and the result are these extraordinary pieces/ And our jobs are to SEE, FEEL, HEAR the stories as we look one by one.
This is what has happened.
The passion of every creation ever created by Bakshi is on each of these canvases.
Take a moment.
See.
Feel.
Hear.
Dream.
It is all there and takes your breath away.
It is odd to see these up on a gallery wall.
They feel as though they should be with Bakshi; they are he. He are they.
These are evidence of a man who has spent a lifetime dedicated to his love and his art;
inspired by a Bassett woman;
motivated by offspring;
eaten by Hollywood;
risen to the answer.
This -
to me-
is what
ARE
The Streets.
Bakshi’s Streets.
Your Streets.
Our Streets
And every story we have ever created on those Streets.
He gives them back to us.
On a small canvas.
That we can hang on our wall and watch flip through the myriad of images that race before our eyes as if we are watching a flat screen tv.
But it is our minds that are flipping.
Not the screen.
Enjoy.
Voyage.
Experience.
Behold.
Then again…listen to nothing I have said.
After all…
I am just his daughter..
