“They’ve been obsessing me for years. I searched and found them in Benares, on the banks of the river Gange (India). They arrive here to get rid of everything and to wait for death. This existence can last for years, sometimes decades, almost a life. Opposite to mine, well organised and filled as a human life can be, to try in vain to push the limits of its end”. – Denis Rouvre. (Photo by Denis Rouvre)

I would like to tell you why many artists, who like me, have painted portraits and landscapes in oils on canvas, worked with acrylics, watercolors, and pen and ink drawings, have turned to the art of gourd carving.

A man rides a motorcycle along a street in the snow in Altay, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region, February 9, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A participant has his body painted before a regional bodybuilding championship in Stavropol, southern Russia, April 10, 2016. (Photo by Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)

A girl swings on a rope swing over the Volga River in Zavolzhsk, Ivanovo Region, Russia on June 9, 2020. (Photo by Vladimir Smirnov/TASS)

Calves look out as they are transported in a cart in the village of Litkovka, in Omsk region, Russia on March 20, 2021. (Photo by Alexey Malgavko/Reuters)

Scared of Heights. “Taken from the highest residential building in Asia: the Zenith in Busan. This was taken with official permission (which took me months to get) and safety measures were taken. I had to hang myself over the edge to get this shot. Not for the faint of heart! But when you’re at a height like this, the world below you just seems different. It takes away the fear one would normally have, and gives a sense of peace instead”. (Photo by Albert Dros/NatGeo Cities Travel Photographer of the Year 2017)

In this Thursday, May 16, 2013 file photo, Finland's Krista Siegfrids, second right, kisses a dancer as she performs her song “Marry Me” during the second semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest at the Malmo Arena in Malmo, Sweden. That was the first girl-on-girl kiss in the history of the annual competition. Previously, organizers had sought to prevent similar embraces citing the competition's status as a family event. (Photo by Alastair Grant/AP Photo)