 Olivier
Toma
French
version is available!
Biography:
Oliver Toma
has spent the last 15 years of his life on the quest of artistic
discovery, taking in mosaics, painting, sculpture, ink and calligraphy
along the way.
Today his works fuse together abstract painting and gestural calligraphy.
His art can be described as "Calligraphy of the Senses"."Senses",
as much for the quality of the materials he uses, as for his wish
to manifest a certain hidden reality in his works in order to, thus,
attempt to create "sense".
His canvasses can be perceived through visual, olfactory, and tactile
sensations.Shapes form according to the level of light and darkness,
dry or wet conditions.
As a result, each natural cycle exercises a unique influence over
the person standing in front of his canvasses.
'Sense' plays an additional role in his work in that a calligraphic
word can contain another, which reveals an alternative 'meaning',
an example of which is his signature when inverted.
Passionate about collage and unconventional blends, his oeuvres
are composed of Indian ink, egg-based paint produced from soil gathered
at the foot of volcanoes, and a mixture of oriental, Latin, and
Hebrew calligraphy.
All this is the upshot of a global inspiration uniting time and
history, cultures and traditions, and materials of past and present
reflecting the omnipresence of mankind.
These works convey feelings, emotions and intuition.Always on the
lookout for new approaches and materials, his style has matured
with time, enriched by his contacts, introductions and discoveries.
His latest creations are made up of a varnish of curry and saffron,
paint made up of cocoa and of the arable soil of Hawaii, as well
as coffee and tobacco.
The calligraphies are more refined and become simple movements guided
by ever-increasing inspiration.
In more recent times, he has made paper in his workshop working
with plant life from the South of France, thus accomplishing a complete
nature embracing creation, in terms of the support and products
used.
Following the exhibitions in THE HAGUE of October 2002, he will
be introduced to the "Art présent" gallery in Paris
in February 2004.
Olivier Toma was selected for the Grande-Motte Autumn exhibition
(salon d'automne de la Grande-Motte) in 2002 and has been a silver
medal winner at the 2002 Prestige of the creators of the century
international Grand Prix in Chamberry-La Ravoire (grand prix international
de prestige des créateurs du siècle de Chamberry-La
Ravoire).
He was also selected at the second pictorial of Languedoc de Saint
Gely de Fesc (Languedoc de Saint Gely du Fesc) in February 2003.
Other achievements include:
Prize winner in 2003 at the Quasart art contest.
Bronze medal at the 'Grand Prix de Prestige' in Marseilles, 2003.
As a result of his exhibition at the 'hôtel de ville' in MONS,
Belgium, the 'Poètes et Artistes de France' organisation
awarded him the Graphics research prize.
Selected for the prestigious 'salon VIOLET' in December 2003.
Article:
A need to paint
There are some journeys through life that do not seem to be heading
towards art and the solitary work of the studio. These are lives
that are anchored in reality, that step inevitably up the ladder
and along a carefully thought out route with no thought of possible
deviations. Such was Olivier Toma’s path, as he moved steadily through
well-oiled gears until one day the tension snapped and he was left,
suddenly, with just one means of expression, painting. A direct
physical approach; a one to one with the material became the only
way of transposing his emotions and communicating effective reality.
Out of this
early, frenzied work came the intellectual arguments and the discourse.
From being a necessity, his painting turned more experimental and
became linked to an imagined ideal. An area of pure creativity in
which he explored all possibilities and invented, in a sort of audacious
pictorial genesis, all sorts of techniques which he appropriated
simply to expound his idea. To this unceasing search, which led
him down many unexplored avenues, there remained the sign, calligraphy,
the considered gesture, contained energy, the verb. An immutable
figure around which he developed a dynamic and instinctive body
of work.
The object of painting is first, the impenetrability of the world;
painting is the way to pierce its mystery, the place where the canvas
becomes a laboratory. The world needs to be found and then concentrated
into its most primitive and original forms. Infinite matter transmuted
by experience, fate, fortuitous meetings and the slow working of
unexpected textures.
The painter
becomes an alchemist and the studio is transformed into a laboratory
where each experiment is rigorously recorded. Treating with disdain
classical approaches Olivier Toma attempts to create a universe
that is his own, taking from the world around him that which he
feels he can graft onto his composition of materials and using the
most unlikely materials in order to achieve the desired result.
First and foremost
nature provides an inexhaustible field of inspiration. A seductive
prodigality who’s varied aspects the artist explores. From his travels
he returns with mineral curiosities such as the jars of green sand
that he used for luminous granular surfaces. The earth offers him
a wide chromatic palette, natural pigments whose warm tones he loves.
Fascinated by the ability of certain plants to produce dyes, he
expresses the colour contained in the petals and body of the plant
into strange concoctions making inks and the basis of more or less
strong shades of colour.
From flowers
to spices and via traditional foods, such as chocolate or egg white,
all are used as media, subjects for consideration, experiments and
even experimentation.
With an alternative use of products and chemical molecules that
attract and repel, the canvas is covered in a sedimentary layer,
partly in harmony and partly in conflict. This dynamic is essential,
as though it were necessary to rediscover the world’s first momentum,
its primitive impetus and even that which preceded representation.
Paint is spread like strange chaos; a sort of unstable energy, full
of mobility and movement, of flux and transformation.
In the heart
of this space, elements link up with each other, talk to each other
and bring into being a painting built on extreme tension. Worked
in a complex way, this painting seems to carry the beginnings of
materials in gestation. Within this, then occurs an unceasing debate
between the space to be painted, its genesis containing fragments
of the universe and the omnipresence of the sign; knowing that chaos
is always there as a receptacle for the figure.
Two forces opposing
each other; chaos and order; silence and the verb; the sensual and
the sacred. Calligraphic signs mean balance, harmony; the basics
of the canvas are built around these omnipresent fragments of writing.
For Olivier Toma the symbolic role of the sign is determinant and
its carefully produced aestheticism seems like a breath, a human
trait placed on the surface of the world. This most ordered representation
tempers chaotic creation. Constellations, tangled masses and an
instinctive dynamic oppose a structured outlook. Concentrating all
humankind’s aspirations within itself the sign is witness to an
unalterable desire to name, elucidate and give meaning to the surrounding
environment.
Of diverse inspirations calligraphy also marks a return to the scriptural,
the love of handwriting and its marvellous and enigmatic scope.
The gestural is an integral part of the ceremonial, its extent going
well beyond the printed space. There too, the choice of pigments,
the transparence, the luminosity and the intensity of the colours
are the result of successful research.
Olivier Toma’s
work is blessed with complete independence. His developments are
completely spontaneous and never the result of intentions that might
upset the raw material of his imagination and his research work.
His artistic expression remains utterly free and therefore very
distinctive.
Filled with
life’s momentum; dynamic and rhythmic, his painting is essentially
sensual.
Sensual in its appreciation of time, an important factor in the
act of painting which then can become the painting’s subject. Time
inherent in technique that he needs to recover ceaselessly.
Sensual in his choice of texture.
Sensual in rhythm, imparting a beating heart on the surface of the
material.
Sensuality and sacredness found in the ambiguity of a fragile equilibrium.
It calls to
the viewer and poses questions about its meaning and the secret
of its matter with such intensity, with such presence and a real
sense of painting renewed.
Danièle
Helligeinstein
Online Portfolio:
olivier-toma.com
►►
Some of the artist's artwork
Contact: infos@olivier-toma.com
|
