Can Serrat International Art Centre

After a year full of emotional new beginnings, transformations, closures and unexpected turns. I decided to complete an opportunity given to me in 2005. I was awarded a visual art support stipend at Can Serrat International Art Centre. This centre only offers funding to 30 artists annually. It was a perfect time in my life to be in the spiritual place of Barcelona and understand my need to create fluid, informal calligraphic art that was influenced by Tachism. Can Serrat was originally an old winery, it had a rambling added on presence of a communal home for many artists over many years. This beautiful white-dusted building with many attics and added on studios sat at the foot of the mountain. A perfect place to create. Peaceful, with scents from the olivegrove, long lunches, open fires and rich Spanish wine. The garden was lush, surreal as in Miro's paintings and many donated sculptures and mood lit areas reflect the magic which emanated from Montserrat's monolithic, misted forms. My studio was expansive, sunlit and sectioned with stained glass. There were musted, blue, ochre and green colors and gold mine of equipment left in the other studios. I spent a lot of my time absorbing the city of Barcelona, especially the galleries. It was wonderful to have the 30 days in a country to understand a European culture that was so different from Australia. It was only 45 Minutes to get to the centre of Barcelona. I worked hard when I was in the studio at Can Serrat International Arts Centre. As part of the residency I had to produce an art piece to donate to the permanent collection. Using Miro's calligraphic use of black and combining it with Motherwells' collage and ideas in "Elegy to a Spanish Republic" I created a framed work on paper "Elegy to a Samurai". If you are in Barcelona and interested in art and respectful that Can Serrat International Art Centre is a place to work for artists and writers - there is rooms for the general public. It is such a magical place, warm atmosphere and the experience at Can Serrat has given me new perspectives on how to live and create art. The experience at the residency has also given me access to the great masters which I can now embed into my work.