wall painting

 Since I got back in Mauritania I've stop sketching instead I started doing this big wall painting based in an idea of making some paintings that will work alongside wall paintings for a future project. 

 So I started with a wall from my living room and soon will be doing a second one in Herman's Auberge, hope I won't run out of walls.

Alex

Palma de Mallorca

stop over

I returned to Mauritania by plane with Royal Air Maroc, the day we left it was raining and as the plane took off (an old 48 places model) the man on the seat on the left had to stop a drip with his newspaper.



Arriving to Casablanca at 10 am I didn't have a plane to Nouakchott until that evening at 11.30pm, Royal Air Maroc had this great Hotel waiting for us, so we could rest and relax until take off.

Ancient Walata

Its from the end of the XIX century that those towns loose their importance becoming places that are hard to find. Until then they were placed in the trade routes and caravans of camels used to cross them. Today gouvernment efforts and a small tourist industry maintain some life in those places.



Walata, like Chinguetti and Wadane, is part of the World Heritage and a Unesco's site. For its inhabitants life use to go as always.



But Walata is special, as its unique in its decoration not exhisting anything like in the surrounding countries.



The red clay and the pigments are found all around the village being dug from mines.



Those small objects are toys and burners that women have been doing for centuries. Doll houses are also done you can see an example here.

Animals roam freely into the patios of the houses looking for bits to eat.

From early age young girls start helping their mum's and is a common sight to see them carrying their younger brothers or sisters in their backs.

This is the view you have from Walata looking across the dry river bed and into the heights. The rectangular building used to be know in the old dictator's time as a political prison where torture was practised and where many detractors died.

Sidi makes a cow with a bit of clay he wants to show as women that he can also master the work.

Walata

These are from a sketchbook I did in 2005 when I visited the ancient town of Walata in the East of Mauritania,1.300km from the capital, Nouakchott. Walata was a busy town from the XIII century until the XIX, as she was a place where the camel caravans coming from Timbuckt laden with salt had to pass.

What's amazing about this town is that each year after the rain season the women would repaint with her fingers the outside of the houses with elaborated drawings whose symbolisation is lost for most of todays inhabitants. Some of the inner rooms of the houses have alsopaintings covering the whole of the walls. In 2005 some people were already starting to use industrial paints instead of the natural coloured clays found in the region.

I'll post some more drawings in the next few days.

museums and galleries

Long time no post but I've been moving around as I don't come so often to Europe. As you will see lots of time spent in Museums and Art Galleries not much time to sketch the cities!!

Monday I'll be flying back home to Mauritania its been to long.

J.C.J. Vanderheyden , Culturgest, curator Miguel Wandschneider, Lisbon

Josep Niebla, Galeria Palacio Galveias, Curator Antoni Alvarez de Arana, Lisbon

Heimo Zobernig, fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, curator Jürgen Bock, Lisbon

Altermodern, Tate Britain, curator Nicolas Bourriard, London

National Portrait Gallery, London

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, Tate Modern, London

Tate Modern, permanent collection, London