Cakes; Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro 2010

I like this piece and its colours, and I am happy with the shapes too. Looking back, I usually don’t like my pieces so if I do like some in retrospect, it makes me happy. Santa Teresa is an old quarter with colonial architecture, situated on a slope, so wherever you go to it it is always uphill, the only flat surface being a football pitch. The actual destination from this spot to the place I used to live is very short, but on the way there I felt like I was climbing Mount Everest. I had the worst hangover you could imagine, little paint and no sketch. So this Cakes was born thanks to the hospitality of SWK (pronounced Suki) and MENT. We painted amidst a local football match, and as we stood right behind the goal, we were risking being hit in the head by the ball, which would have probably finished me off. Anyway, it is a memory of a lovely festive afternoon in Rio, my head no longer hurts and the piece simply looks good. And in the Gomes bar they really have the best version of the famous pumpkin pastel in the whole world.