I OWN YOU THIS BRANDEN C. WALLACE (MY FRIEND NOW)

New York also happens to be a wide range of colours. It’s an impossible game to classify. The story is like living on a scary movie. A thriller.  An uncertain film. But among those that end well.

Branden C. Wallace

I walk. It’s cold. It’s a sunny day. I look up, while I walk down. Someone is checking me out, I can feel it. It must be a man. I sense him about 50 meters away. A stranger is coming. He is mature and walks proudly. He has a nice look on his face. He walks those very last 25 meters staring at my face. He keeps his  eyes right on my eyes. Right when he gets 3 steps further, he looks down and walks by me. Only 10 steps after my back is touched by someone’s hand. It’s him. He scares me and as I turn to see him I also scare him. His eyes are blue. He is the sort of man with a mysterious halo around him: ”I’d like to paint you…you have something I want” he says. Right there. Nothing more, nothing less. A sugarless question pursuing a basic need, aggressive yet honest enough to simply present the need to be fulfilled. I give him my e-mail. So that’s it, a man saw me down the street and wants to paint me. We talk about it and I’m going back home nervous. So very nervous.

Two hours later, I’ve received an email. I’ve read it carefully. There is simply nothing quite unexpected to understand: he insisted on painting me, he needed to do so. His look leaded him to touch my back. My back to the e-mail. The e-mail to my messenger. The messenger to the skype. And the skype leaded me to the subway, on the way to his place with all the doubts within me.

Then the fairy tale starts: a breathtaking building in the heart of Tribeca. A swinging door. Two doormen. Four elevators. 17 floors. 2 dogs waiting at the door. Some huge Windows. 40 paintings on the floor. 70 brushes.7 sculptures and a standing man staring at me. Still his eyes are blue. He welcomes me and followed by his dogs I walk down the aisle all the way to the living room where he lives, surrounded by paintings, brushes, paint tubes and sculptures precisely untidy. I sit down on a black-haired sofa. It’s warm. He covers it with a sheet. I undress myself and the trip begins.

You can probably guess the end. While he painted me, I could see the canvas and it’s progress. I was mesmerized. Then I’ve said to him that rather than finishing it in just two hours, as agreed beforehand, he could and should do it slowly, until he got the results he wanted and I wanted, I would certainly be pleased. He said to me that in four three-hour sessions he would be done. First one down. Three to go. At the end of the day, I still have two weeks ahead in New York city and I’ve already been so many times in here, that the idea of an stranger touching my back, the blue eyes, the e-mail, the messenger and the skype flatters me and I want him to end his work well. Hopefully he’ll give it to me, but sounds like something hard. He sells similar paintings for $5.000. No way!

Anyway, we left it here. When I left his house the painting looked like this...

"Public Profiles" - Documentary from Magus Pictures on Vimeo.