My picture titled Carmen á lá Acosta was painted to be a present for my husband’ birthday and features scenes of our favourite ballet. I got acquainted with Carmen first in Bizet’s masterpiece. Its title hero is Carmen the zingara with perilous seducing power, who is the most thrilling character of the opera world. A number of ballet groups made adoptions of this theme. It is the version made by Carlos Acosta, the Cuban born dancer and choreographer which is our favourite. Ballet stars Marianella Nunez as Carmen, Frederico Bonelli as Escamillo and Carlos Acosta as Don José express in this ballet emotions inexpressible with words with their art of dancing together with the Royal Ballet, with flamenco dancers, opera singers and musicians. I can only suggest anyone who has not seen it to get the DVD and watch. What can I say about the stamps used to make the picture? I think I used more than one thousand pieces and most of them are of Dutch issue. The curiosity of the picture is that both red and blue colours are painted with different parts of the same stamp and the yellow flowers on Carmen’s dress are made by using another stamp of the same series. Should you have a close look at the picture you can see that the flowers themselves feature a man and a woman.

Size:  50 x 49 cm
Status: in private property