toin adams:sculptor

I never studied art conventionally although I had the good fortune to discover sculpture through a great teacher at high school in Africa.  Dear Mr Mike Muller. That and reading Rodin's biography did it for me. What better job, I thought, than making giant sculptures for cities......certainly beats getting a proper job, something I have endeavoured to avoid my entire life. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen. But as a sculptor, I reckon I have at least until 80 before  the 'they' decide. Meanwhile the love affair continues.....

The Imaginary Beings Art Collective

As Arundahti Roy puts it so eloquently: "Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars,their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: we be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing".

It began as an idea that sprang from a coincidence. My friend Zsi Chmera told me about a book by Jorge Luis Borges called The imaginary Beings. We were both intrigued by it and she was to create his creatures in her inimitable way out of paper montage and print making and I would then create the menagerie in steel. At the same time another good friend Carolina Maggio was invited by the Jorge Luis Borges Center in Buenos Aires to do an exhibition of painting.  Our friend and muse, dancer Marga Zafrilla Olaya helped consolidate our thoughts and out of this was born The Imaginary Beings Collective. We began creating art events, often for no purpose other than the sheer joy of collaborating on something we had not tried before, sometimes because a great venue presented itself and other times simply to open our exhibitions.    Many experiments and gorgeous experiences later our numbers keep growing and we continue to create art events all over Europe. Our last being in Portugal and the next in Milan.  For more information visit: www.imaginarybeings.org

Zsi and I never completed the collaboration since she left this world recently in a hot air balloon. I'd laugh if I wasn't crying so much.  But I will complete our ideas one day. In the meantime look at her beautiful work here:  www.zsichimera.com.