• horsesvisions > paintings — Birdland > Genesis

The final painting of the Birdland series was entitled We like Birdland, because intentionally faithful to Patti Smith's last spoken words in her dark psalm. This pictorial epilogue carefully avoided representing the great black spaceship evoked by the American singer. I felt that the "Roswell" aesthetic traditionally attached to Flying Saucers (objects which yet fascinate me, and about which I have a whole collection of books and films), did not correspond to the very particular atmosphere of Smith’s creation. I meant to avoid the pitfall of a cliché and expected depiction of Little Green Men -or gray ones, eg the infamous “Grays” in Saucers' mythology), and in any case I did not feel like representing some kind of metallic fried egg, no matter how flying, black and gigantic it might look like in this last painting's case.

I then remembered the only and unique stealthy vision of extraterrestrials that Stanley Kubrick chose to submit to us about the cosmic entities who guide astronaut David Bowman (interpreted by Keir Dullea) through the Star Gate and beyond the Infinite, in what has remained as the American director's unchallenged eternal masterpiece, and the greatest movie ever made : 2001 A Space Odyssey. Kubrick had wisely opted for a purely symbolic vision. Seven mysterious tetrahedral flying crystals.

Seven. The esoteric and religious number par excellence, and a number symbolizing perfection and the Divine in Tradition. Seven crystals of pure light that herald David Bowman's flight over the solarized space plains imagined by the other greatest filmmaker of all times (apart from Hitchcock) : the late Stanley Kubrick.