"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.

 

 

 

 

Original and unique,mystical and straightforward,charmingly shy and enthusiastic communicator,hard worker and contemplative procrastinator,Antonio Pessoa's nature lives up to a rich controversial personality which indeed has beed the heart and soul of his cinematic adventurous lifesyle.Fact. A " no two alike" myth,this artist,jazz-blues musician,art curator and positive-thinker,remains an up to date phenomenon after all these years of experiencing systematically the leading role of a nail-bitting motion picture which could be eventually titled "Antonio Pessoa the One and Only ". I'm positively sure,his aristocratic background and super-protected privileged childhood education,let alone his unquestionable genetic talent he possesses,have been the seeds for him to grow and become a premature prodigy,even featuring the performance characteristics of a dazzling skilled in any field sort of teenager. Therefore Antonio Pessoa throughout the years has been leading a kind of life we only see in the best and most exciting Hollywood productions,from ever since the time he was twelve years old up to now. Very probably,that's why all his art is so deliciously eclectic,exciting and new,that's definitely why his whole oeuvre is what it is.An awe-inspiring universe of wonder,genius,complexity and over the edge overwhelming content. Since the time,me,Jacob Kotsky,with the valuable assistance help from Luis Santiago,Nancy Igartiburu and Pierre Fontanals,started writing and publishing online all about an artist named Antonio Pessoa,back in 2005,we've been receiving hundreds of letters from people from all over Europe and United States,on a punctual weekly basis asking us an impressive great deal of extra information related with this mysterious artist.More than enough to provide us with substantial motivation to carry on with our reviews and general interest arousing biographical articles about Pessoa's life and work. Being all the four of us close friends of the artist,public relations and global collaborators,references and accurate reliable information sources hasn't been a problem for very obvious reasons,moreover I'm happy to report that this process on the whole has been and it is mostly truly stimulating,enjoyable and rewarding.Fact. All this takes place precisely when Pessoa,mind made up,decides to break up with his traditional figurative paintings to embrace exclusively contemporary fine art,surprising us all as he systematically comes up with a totally different line of work,Pierre Fontanals named New Era,in which Antonio Pessoa once again proves to be indeed a unquestionable gifted talented innovator,by so originally starting to produce a series of canvases and watercolors clearly reflecting a no way back personal commitment and response to the latest contemporary art tendencies,where not only a striking chromatic miscellaneous brilliance invades his canvases space,but also where his drawing skills astonishingly accomplish the cutting edge and beyond of today's art expression,all so intelligently combined,so unpretentiously aesthetically elegant and glamorous in such a manner of a highly inventive visual writing of a kind of emotional fiction that captures the viewer's sensations at first sight. One of the most frequently asked questions about the artist,still concerns his somewhat cloudy past,namely the late eighties and the super productive golden years of the nineties. Being Antonio Pessoa the paradigmatic straighforward sort of person,it's not always that easy and simple to make him talk about his past,let alone twenty years ago today. However,since I've met him, from the very first time back in the year 1997,I've been having plenty of time to,shall we say,solve the big puzzle,bit by bit,tip by tip,step by step. Therefore,as I became ritualized in Pessoa's hidden secrets,and the flipping schemes involving his outs and abouts of his past,private life,work and lifestyle,solving the riddle the best way I knew how,the complexity of the whole endless process actually turned out to be indeed a truly challenging and rewarding experience,a delicious hard brain teaser,solving the enigma wrapped in mystery,adventure,night life,studio performance,love affairs,glamor and the inevitable unexpected drastic changes. During the mid-late eighties,long before the first Gulf War,Antonio Pessoa is a night-life legend,a jazz-blues musician skillfully playing the grand-piano and singing,performing to perfection new versions of songs by The Beatles,Elton John,Simply Red,Prince,Paul McCartney,Billy Joel,The Doors,The Eagles,James Taylor,Police,Television,Roxy Music,David Bowie,and even Elvis,Sinatra,plus tunes by John Coltrane,Miles Davis and George Gershwin. Cherished by an excited nightly audience he often took the tonight programme a whole lot further on into the morning light by using his sketching and drawing skills overwhelming his celebrating fans club community by painting live,on stage,under the spotlight. According to many of his soul mates,show biz agents,all time friends and audience inocent bystanders years later we've been stumbling upon,here and there and everywhere,the magic of these daily live art shows animated entertainment,was one of Pessoa's most clamouring and most enjoyable periods ever,where fine art was a dancing all night away live play in which Antonio Pessoa besides having the leading role,was also indeed having the time of his life,let alone the inevitable great improvement concerning his artistic performance mastery and expertise. Being by then already a truly experienced live performance veteran,it's no big deal and no wonder the artist was definitely able to handle the situation with that effortless stunning ravishing easy-to-do know-how which made him step on the stage and thereby become the prototype unique symbol of live art action of our times. Even during the nineties,right at his career apotheosis,as he successfully turned and strode toward the top of the hill of his striking worldwide reknown Romantic Period,Pessoa now and then breaks through the boundaries of his art studio and goes back to the night life yet for another display of fine art action live performances,both in the sunny cosmopolitan glamorous mediterranean zone and in celtic inspired Vigo city Atlantic frantic weekends lively night life. Unpredictable as he is,it seems only the future will be able to actually show us whether or not Pessoa's live art action is over for good. The answer for this frequently asked question for the time being remains in the holy secret of the Gods,for in my humble opinion,anytime,anywhere,anyway,anyhow,definitely it wouldn't be the surprise of the century if the artist made up his mind to return to that lively dimension of his life where painting live eventually might bring him that kind of magic,that sort of rewarding inspiration,thrilling excitement and inner satisfaction,we all so desperately need from time to time,here and then,once in a while,in order to make us feel meaningfully alive to such an extent in which we come once again to that delicious point where life once again makes absolute perfect sense,people is beautiful and this planet a wonderful place to celebrate life and arts!