Going postal again...Eduardo Cardosa

For artists a successful show can be both exhausting and exhilarating. With the take-down of This is Just Mail Art and Gone Postal exhibits last month, I found myself way more exhausted than inspired to move on to more and bigger and better things in mail art. That said, my creative energy is slowly creeping back, the juices are beginning to trickle, if not flow, and I find I have a small backlog of wonderful correspondence art (or artful correspondence) from some well-loved and cherished correspondents that I really have to share!

Until now I have "blogged" received work in my online photo albums on the IUOMA-Ning platform site, and on the dedicated group site for the now-ended exhibition. I will continue to use the Ning platform and to post often on the new IUOMA (2013-on) Facebook page, but I have decided it's a good time for me to blog incoming mail art on a true blogging platform. Since I have other blogs here on Blogger, I have decided that this will be the place for me to share the wonderful gifts I get from my world-wide network of obsessively (and wonderfully) creative friends.

And I can think of no better way to start this ball rolling than to share my latest from Eduardo Cardosa.

Envelope front

If you are not familiar with Eduardo's traditional style, you are really missing out and need to rope this man into your M.A. network!  It is highly influenced by the simplicity and expressiveness of medieval Japanese and Chinese painting and printmaking, including some wonderful personalized stamped "chops" that tell you unambiguously you are looking at a Cardosa piece. Lately however, we find that the Zen has been invaded by corrupting influences from DKult-TrashPo, VisPo and the widespread collage-anything-that-doesn't-run-away trend that dominates much mail art today.

In the first piece above, we see pure Cardosa, but it is one in which bold and simple strokes have been replaced by bold and simple collage bits capped by a bit of nonverbiage. The second piece, which really does not show as well as I would like, is truly evidence of Eduardo's descent into TrashPo Hell! Bits and pieces of lovely rubbish, including what could be a tape transfer of a silver microcircuit, are assembled here with the deft touch of a master of simplicity and balance. "Pensamento" indeed.

In these two pieces, Eduardo confounds my attempts to categorize his work. The ellipses on the left say "simple mark-making is alive" while the piece on the right layers the mark-making with trash-treasure and another VisPo.

And Eduardo prods us all onwards with a piece that follows much the same formula as that last one on the right, above, and it is an Add and Pass. I will certainly add, and this, too, will certainly pass. There was also a nice personal note...always a bonus in a mail art mailing. I am so glad to be a correspondent of IUOMA's resident Portuguese Zen artist. Thank you Eduardo!