Gold and Begin collaboration at Caravel Art Center
Updated: Dec 17, 2020
Christian Gold & Benjamin Begin Collaboration
Christian Gold (graphic artist) and Benjamin Begin (photographer) have collaborated to produce a series of serigraphs on wood panels. Begin is a new addition to the growing stable of artists being shown at Art Center Caravel in Funchal, Madeira, although Christian and his work are already known to us through his almost sell-out show in 2018.

Their work explores mostly their mutual admiration for, and interaction with, the environs of Madeira and its surfer subculture. Using a fusion of urban and street art style, each artisan piece is unique and is built up through a number of processes beginning with Begin´s original photograph, then being embellished by Gold using acrylics and spray paint, before being finally screen printed onto sheets of rough-cut virgin plywood.

Such complex imagery we are used to seeing from Christian whose work is biographical and relates his experiences from his travels.
The exhibition is further enhanced by a series of serigraphs produced from carefully selected images created by Christian´s girlfriend Nadi from her work as a digital artist working with computer game design, whimsically drawing theatrically on Madeira´s, thankfully distant, pirate history.
The series is a touching attenuated narrative of friendship and shared experience… a sort of Madeirense Ukiyo (Floating World) of fleeting moments and flashing emotions that we may recall in later life with affection but bitter-sweet nostalgia.

Cefyn Embling-Evans
Art Curator
