Fernando de la Rocque Paints with Marijuana Smoke

High on Art – Brazilian Artist Paints with Marijuana Smoke

By Spooky on August 16th, 2012 Category: Art, Pics

For his latest series, aptly entitled “Blow Job – Work of Blowing”, Brazilian artist Fernando de la Rocque has created images of political and religious icons using marijuana smoke. Needless to say that has sparked a great deal of controversy in the art world.

We’ve seen some pretty unique works of art created with smoke, like the ghost paintings of Rob Tarbell or the smoke-painted bottles of Jim Dingilian, but none as controversial as Fernando de la Rocque’s. The daring artist using a unique technique to paint images onto a white canvas – he blows marijuana smoke on pre-cut stencils laid down on the canvas to dye paint and shade the desired areas. The results are pretty impressive, but it’s the bizarre technique that attracted the most attention, with many wondering how he must feel after completing one of his smoky artworks.

Photo: Fernando de la Rocque

In an interview with Brazilian newspaper The Rio Times, de la Rocque said “more important than freedom to smoke marijuana is the freedom to think about it and make art with it. Polemic issues divide opinions, forcing people to think and debate. Inertia is useless when we want to overcome something.” The idea of using marijuana smoke to create art has been in development for some time, and Fernando’s similar paintings created with wine confirm his artistic motivation: ““I always like to create art with pleasure.”