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2006-03-03 to 2006-04-16
Opening Reception: 2006-03-03, at 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
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| | Category: Life |
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| Genre: Contemporary |
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recent drawings:
Man was made of earth: what good can reside in him?
His Reverence Silian Athonitul
„The recent drawings”* of Roman Tolici have a black background. Perfectly black. The (color) image emerges from the “lighting” of the black. By means of successive additions of shades, one next to the other. I remember when I was in high school I used to do similar drawings on pieces of cardboard painted in black ink, by scratching it with a needle in order to create the drawing itself. Just like on a copper plate. Roman does the same thing, it’s just that he uses color, well-sharpened pencils which do not “attack” the surface. They are in agreement with the surface. He starts from photos and transposes them onto these flat, “deep”, aseptic support. People and things / objects populate and animate them. Black can be neutral, but it can also be active – it depends on the dedication of the man working with it.
I was particularly attracted by the mini-cycle “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!”. The cycle consists of four drawings in which a little girl performs the “cross sign” with her tongue. Her position is a repetition of a faithful’s position, “uttering” the few words voicelessly. The ventriloquist face is discouraging, sober and impregnated with the “seriousness” of the completed act. It seems that this way of worshipping is current practice among our fellow people who conceal their belonging to the Church of Christ. The secularised, consumerist, individualised and newly rich do not regard someone who crosses oneself by using a hand favorably. Then, they resort to this formal trick that Roman ridiculizes. But this is also a serious reason for the artist to analyze the human face, its physiognomical “constellation” when it considers itself serious, “touched” by the deed it is performing. In fact, Tolici has a constant practice of investigating the situation and geography of the human “cheek”. There is an old saying which refers to, among others, “having a cheek”… in the sense of having morals, consciousness, responsibility, discernment. Some spiritual fathers say it is as if one has the “dinstinguishing gift”. The capacity to discern. To call things by their name, but not before “exploring” them and really understanding them. It is exacly this highlighting of the strong essence of things that I can “read” in the passage from black to white. From darkness to light. Black is associated with the abyss, gulf, ravine, demonic, earth, sallow, uncertain, shapeless, indecisive, unrest, sadness (to see darkness in front of one’s eyes)...
I’ve always enjoyed the fact that Roman Tolici raises also moral issues, not only graphic or aesthetic ones – like most of the people around him and from his social environment. He is in good terms with fine artists, those in the publicity and advertising “sect”, with literati, urban “analysts”... There are some of the many hypostases in which I can identify Tolici with his power to understand, to have a word to say or a expression to render. In his “recent drawings”, the artist proves the same seriousness and dedication. He does not do anything for the sake of it, for the effect, to show off or impress the immediate, pedestrian and superficial perception or reading of the moment. His works “develop” in a secondary background, behind the formal, graphic “disguise”. Here and there (Without a title, The Race, March and some others which have no name, on purpose, I believe), I can find cultural quotations, cinematographic hints, subtle, ironical wits. And even if sometimes they are not assumed as a statement or if the author himself is not aware of them, they become even more precious and exciting for the commentor. The artist must not “pronounce” himself – he expresses himself graphically. It is like in the case of painters of icons – it is his prayer. This is why I personally don’t believe too much in the artists’ “sentences” and “explanations”. They sometimes have a tendency to “self-explain”, to add words in order to express something they could not express by the means they have already assumed. What good are these “footnotes” for? Because of these „contes fantastique autours de contes originaires”? (Jurgis Baltrušaitis). Roman avoids them more often than not. He likes to tell stories, to say witty things and chat about anything, but he does not do this with too great a mobilisation when someone asks him to explain a drawing or a painting. For he is always in a dilema of discernment. He is swinging between the black and the white. This does not necessarily mean between good and evil.
I always think about the length of the seconds, minutes and maybe hours in which these drawings come out of Roman’s hand. I try to imagine (does the image give rise to the next one?) the thoughts, joy and sadness occuring in his mind, what is within his soul all this time. Maybe in his subconscious, the artist relies on this type of “indecence” and “inquisitiveness” of the onlooker? For the “tyranny” of the contrast the eye has to bear is not intended only for him. I cannot accept that. Everything would be too simple, too futile. It would be like a camera snapshot. This is the trap Roman opnes for us to fall into: it is only at this time, after the photo has become a support, that the artist’s “function” begins. In order to highlight his entire and major involvement. Involvement into understanding the immensity of the thought chosen as a motto for these friendly notes: Man was made of earth: what good can reside in him?
vladimir bulat
on the day of Saint Leon, the Bishop of Rome, 2006
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* there is something definitory in this phrase. The recent naturally follows the “ancient” and it is a hypostasis of something that has been and it has just completed. It is very close to us, overlapping something that exists. Like the pages of a book. From this perspective, the “recent drawings” seem to complete an experience, like a successive accumulation and fulfillment
They present a conclusion. Or the end of a stage, of a chapter. The “recent” will certainly foster
the appearance of another.
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