PHOTON 2021 Print

Metaphysics of the everyday The exhibition "Photon" proposed by the artist ORMI, propels us immediately and with an apparent simplicity, in the heart of the cosmos. But of a cosmos made even more sublime, dilated, over-signified through a superposition of references, which are revealed little by little, by stages and successive layers. Throughout this "Photon" series, it is a true sidereal contemplation. But what planet does ORMI come from and what galaxy does he live in? After a first life as an artistic director, ORMI deserted the advertising microcosm to return to his initial vocation as a visual artist, passionate and in love with painting. Painting as an object and material, worked in a timeless, physical, almost organic relationship. Thus, like an alchemist in search of absolute artistic transmutation, ORMI constantly engages in secret experiments, playing with pigments and chemical treatments, constantly seeking to push back the material limits of what can be seen on canvas. At first glance, the subject matter is confusing. The use of the technique of gold leaf backgrounds refers to the tradition of the Byzantine icon, thus reviving the sacred archaeological function of art and the artist. The proposal asserts itself first of all as a series of pious images, where by a radical iconoclastic act, the religious subject is substituted by a variation of representations of the cosmos, like so many new sacred icons of a Spinozian Great Whole, unsurpassable, fascinating, brilliant. At the second glance, subtly, are discovered, in superposition, tagged messages, that evoke irresistibly the calligraphic tradition. Subliminal messages of mystical graffiti artist. The whole then builds a secret story, of which each fragment breaks the serial similarity of the whole and reinforces the singularity of each image. Finally, and paradoxically, it is also in full darkness that the series "Photon" is fully contemplated and revealed, thanks to a play of luminescence, restoring the sidereal clarity which emanates from the stars. A process of a childish freshness, which refers to the luminous celestial vaults illuminating the ceiling of the rooms of the children that we all remained, in order to exorcise their fear in the dark. And, in echo of distant reminiscences of natural science courses, we remember well that the starlight which reaches us "here and now" comes in fact, from now disappeared, extinguished, dead stars.