For Gianluigi Buffon

See Painting

Prismacolorpencils and Acrylic on Paper on Masonite

20" x 20"
(51 cm x 51 cm)
2008

©2008 Martin Dusan. All rights reserved.

Altho it is placed in "Sports-voetbal", it is not about soccer. (tho G. Buffon is probably the best goalkeeper in the world).It has to do with Leonardo, and his drawings of warriors and grotesque heads. With Italy and being Italian.

But most of all, with 431 East 102nd Street (the housing project in east Harlem, NYC.) where I grew up. My family lived on the 4th floor. Below us on the 3rd floor lived an Italian family. Everyday at a certain time, someone would look out the window and yell, "Hey Dino, tutti la Manja!"

In that project, in that time, with all the different nationalities, we were a league of nations.The children of immigrants. First generation born in the U.S.A. Of the Italians, I remember their fierce pride and passion. Their quick temper, and how "they talked with their hands".