I'm Selling Coffee and Hope !!

It always amazes me how aromas and scents, flavors and textures found in the food and drinks that we consume can evoke moods, a certain attitude, a timeless memory and all those delicious pleasures that human nature always surrenders to. I was born in Colombia, a beautiful country where some of the finest coffee beans in the world are grown and harvested. This painting is the first of a series of images inspired by coffee and its effect, literally and culturally, on our lifestyles.

Based on memories from my childhood, life-long observations and on growing up in a land where drinking coffee has been a daily ritual and a national past time for so many generations, my intention is to create images that celebrate every aspect of coffee growing, harvesting roasting and drinking. And about age-old socio-cultural rituals.

I am also interested in all the different and multiple ways in which human beings connect and communicate with each other, consciously or not. The coffee bean then becomes a means and one of nature’s multiple gifts, by which so many of us ultimately end up, consciously or not, communicating with each other. People from all walks of life participate, again consciously or not, in an amazing cycle that links many aspects of human inter action and connectedness. From the time that the coffee bean seed is planted, carefully nurtured and grown, to the moment when it’s picked, then shipped, roasted, sold and eventually consumed by us, we all become the fabric with which a bio-socio-cultural quilt is created.