Five Musical Moments at Mendl’s

This work-in-progress series of acrylic paintings on canvas accompanies the screenplay "Youkali," named after a beautiful song by German-American composer Kurt Weill. The song conjures a vision of a magical island where “happiness and pleasure” hold sway – a utopian “land of our desires” where the “poor human soul” is delivered a reprieve from life’s harsh realities.

The story follows the protagonist, Rachmaninoff, who, during a state of misery, disarray, and a severe bout of writer’s block, stumbles upon a public coffee house named Youkali. Through his eyes, audiences journey into the inner sanctum of a society of artistic individuals from diverse ages, cultures, and disciplines. Each member, riddled to varying degrees with keen intellect, bold ambition, unwavering yearning, tempestuous despair, and diabolical eroticism, helps to stir Rachmaninoff's senses, ultimately bringing him back to his inner world of musical creation.

These acrylic paintings on canvas form a hexaptych that follows a cinematic sequence of spaces making up Youkali, which is, in essence, a Coffee House proper. In other words, it is a place given up to gaiety, to a gaiety stimulating thought, rather than crushing it