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Lot Essay
The Chemicals were a platform on which Souza played with multiple streams in culture: the fantastical and the iconic in the media, the increasing influence of eroticism in American culture, his discovery of the mystical in the Bhagavad Gita, his interest in Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement.
Diary: 31 January 1969
When I got home read the newspaper and started painting till 9 in the morning: Finished 18 paintings using a new medium: [chemical solvant]. Marvelous result.
Artist with no paint, with no money to buy paint paints without paint: That's how strong the creative process is making something out of nothing.
15 December 1969
Fortnight to go before end of year. It has been a bad year. 6 oils only during the entire year. Of course I did a lot of the 'Chemical' paintings on paper. All my attempts to meet with gallery owners and art dealers resulted null and void: some with hostility others indifferent, still others hypocritically. Now that I learn more about N.Y. I find that it is a city of gangs...
Diary: 31 January 1969
When I got home read the newspaper and started painting till 9 in the morning: Finished 18 paintings using a new medium: [chemical solvant]. Marvelous result.
Artist with no paint, with no money to buy paint paints without paint: That's how strong the creative process is making something out of nothing.
15 December 1969
Fortnight to go before end of year. It has been a bad year. 6 oils only during the entire year. Of course I did a lot of the 'Chemical' paintings on paper. All my attempts to meet with gallery owners and art dealers resulted null and void: some with hostility others indifferent, still others hypocritically. Now that I learn more about N.Y. I find that it is a city of gangs...