Daniel AIRAM: conceptual painter
An artistic stopover in Morbihan in the Brittany region, the program is off to a good start for ARTIST.
Near Vannes, in the heart of a village bathed in sunshine that morning, Daniel Airam welcomed us with open arms. This pivotal moment lays an additional stone in the building of our happy collaboration. This jubilant confirmation triggers the feeling that neither he, our cooperating artist, nor we ARTIST, were wrong.
Mild weather, open window onto tree-lined courtyard, good smells from the baker right next to his workshop. This bodes well!
Like all enthusiasts, our host proves fascinating. A true art historian, he doesn't explain, he tells! As in an amphitheatre, we are speechless and all ears. In the whirlwind of this call for air and art, there are inevitably affinities, smiles of complicity, straight out of bubbling and converging thoughts. It’s off to a strong start!
Precisely, when he details how to see, what to see, so many questions that underpin the entire history of painting, he asks the central question: “What is painting? » and responds immediately “It’s a matter of colors! » There, we drink whey, ARTISTalso is a matter of colors!
“If I paint, it is to talk about the history of painting, hence my choices among the major genres: portraits, landscapes, still lifes… But painting the same thing as in the 16th century. would have no interest. It would be illusory and useless to confront famous artists. You must always renew the painting with a side step, with a different gesture. »comments Daniel Airam.
Incision of numbers, graffiti or messages populate his timeless images, his historical characters, his dreamlike landscapes... His entire artistic approach says many things but simply, with É V I D E N C E!
He entrusts us with his 4 looks: See, watch, observe, contemplate. Memory, impressions, emotions.
At first glance, the painter would adjust successive elements, distant at first glance? It's quite the opposite. We discover great consistency in his practice. What sets it apart is the dialogue he openly creates between abstraction and figurative, between the subject and its splitting by a detail judiciously taken up and zoomed in. In one part, he paints at scale 1 while in another area – which largely has its reason to exist – he paints a similarity but enlarged.
His painting, used as a pretext, nevertheless has a greatness of soul but is no less a spirit. It is no longer so much the execution that counts as the concept. Add another image on a piece of cardboard to provide focus, highlight a resonant color, decline the chromatic range of the theme... The whole point of this blasphemous principle concerns what happens afterwards. The painted scene is put under a magnifying glass, the hand stops on a detail and exposes it in close-up.
When deconstructing becomes a creative act, the painter becomes a conceptual painter.
The painting that interests us offers an “Airamian” interpretation of the myth of Dido and Aeneas.
At the top, the imaginary landscape extracted from the legend. Freed from past centuries, it is paradoxically revealed under a grid in a contemporary version of squaring. This academic technique has allowed throughout the ages the reproduction of a drawing to scale, reduced or enlarged, in the same proportions. Below and echoing, the entire color chart broken down one by one. A reading grid, a desecration which reactivates the landscape and makes it say something else. In the textile field, all collections are built from reference color ranges. At ARTIST we love symbolism, a nod to our clothing universe.
By taste, the artist works on wood. For the finish, varnish was essential. It brings shine and hardness. To regain the vitrified appearance of works between the 14th and 16th centuries, Daniel A. called on a resin expert. Giving depth, increasing shine, that’s his requirement. He therefore does not hesitate to turn to a real skill, an automobile bodywork repairer, the professional who ensures a shine close to glass.
As a child, he drew. One fine day, he discovered “The Museum” which became “His University”. He has boundless admiration for Rembrandt, a major painter of the Dutch school of the 17th century, a great figure of the Baroque. Alone, he studied, he understood the importance of observation, the virtues of the gaze. Self-taught, he is also a photographer and still reveals even the most hidden evidence which, without him, might have escaped us...
Next date to remember from November 11 to 19, 2023: ANTICA NAMUR, Belgium https://www.antica.be/fr/fine-art-fair-namur/
Permanently, in the galleries :
BEYOND APPEARANCES, Annecy France- https://www.galerie-audeladessemblances.com
BEL AIR FINE ART GALLERY, Knokke-Le-Zoute Belgium and Geneva Switzerland - https://www.belairfineart.com/fr/galeries/
FRANS VANHOVE ART GALLERY, Louvain Belgique - https://www.fransvanhove.be
Publié par Viviane VGM, Rédactrice du Magazine Artist La marque.
Compliments for the poetic view in your marvelous photography
Regards
Des couleurs ravissantes qui transportent bien le motif classique d’un voyage dans un monde inconnu et plein d’imagination à découvrir. Je suis très passionnée pour voir le motif transformé en robe. J’adore ces tons bleus sur la toile qui donnent une ambiance mystique à la scène.
Je suis enthousiaste à l’idée de découvrir la peinture de Daniel Airam ( ami FB de longue date) transposée par magie et bien sûr compétence dans votre nouvelle collection.