For each one of these paintings I do extensive research from multiple sources. In this case a children's picture book and a music CD by a Benin musician Angélique Kidjo known as Africa's premier diva according to TIME magazine. It was truly great music and spanned many genres from Jazz to traditional. As usual I poked around google maps 3D but found little inspiration there. Finally I watched a YouTube documentary called "Deadliest Roads, Benin" which, despite the name, was a well told tale of society, history, and hardship in Benin. And of course a deadly road, the narrator follows a cotton truck that barrels down narrow populated highways at top speed. Cotton is one of the main agriculture crops in Benin, the people grow, pick, process and ship cotton out to many other countries. The tragic history of Benin is that it was among the busiest slave ports where the local government sold war prisoners to slave traders, many would perish and those that survived may have well ended up on cotton plantations overseas. Knowing that cotton is the biggest cash crop in Benin, one one hand means that the people now have access to the jobs and a little wealth, but on the other hand they make very little money at it, which is shown in the YouTube documentary.
For the painting, I started with a patchy wash of very light golden yellow, then applied the purplish shadows while wet. I filled in the caramel-browns of the earth and yellow-orange cotton truck. The design shows a deep cotton field from bottom to nearly top, and a small band of west African Savannah. Benin is also known as a refuge for lions and elephants, it is a popular tourist destination for Safaris. The cotton on the back of the truck is light and fluffy like a cloud in the sky. The top of the cotton field undulates at the horizon line as if it is a mountain. The tree in the middle is overwhelmed by the cotton crop and trying to escape, the tree is symbolic.
9 x 11" cold press, watercolour, February 2021 (No. 2528)
next up in the series... scroll down to find out!
Bhutan, then Bolivia
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