Introducing French artist, William Vella, from Minerve
Artist, William Vella - Vidubo©2009
The black bewitches us, worries us and calms us;
It dresses us in elegance or in mourning.
This black begins everything.
This black finishes everything.
Between both…
The life!
For the last four years, my work has been to purify my art as much as possible; to keep in the painting only the essence of the vision.
I have long explored the notion of the actual moment of a gesture, aiming to keep the original emotion (so unique and furtive). When the emotion is too strong, ego steps in with feelings of modesty; expressing rationale or responding with auto-protection when the emotion is too strong.
To reach ‘essence’, I dive into intense emotional states. This research has led me to work on subtle variations of black; a ‘black’ that calls us all. Put in a painting, it becomes pure space, an immense ‘face’ in which I am impressed.
William Vela - Vidubo©2009
The notion of a very fast stranger’s bound through the darkness appeared to me, giving rise in me a sensation of the unlimited way through which we come and we return, as ‘between two worlds’ (Entre Deux).
I wanted to express a simple message: we are here and now, alive; and that which arrives for us during the different stages of the life is inescapable. Whether it is joyful or sad is irrelevant; quite simply, it is ‘the life’; a life which seems a minute thing planted right in the middle of this encompassing black.
Life remains an enigma for us all and yet a unique experience; a precious present that each can consider as a unique agent. Because each of us is unique! I locked my brushes away and I have to paint with brushes and a comb for hairs.
William Vella - Untitled - L'essentiale
By giving a matt or brilliant aspect (sometimes several coats of varnish) to the black, I symbolise the dark or brilliant periods of life. The red represents the fuel of life through its powerful symbolism in this domain.
On the painting, it represents the possible stages of a life, such as The Retreat because we need to isolate ourselves as a hermit in order to grow and become more serene. So Serenity or the other stage of the life appears. But life can also become suspended, as with a thread in On the Thread ( Sur le Fil).
In life, it is sometimes necessary to choose introspection. The painting entitled Introspection represents, in its composition, the work through which we can become conscious of trauma. On the right of the painting, the matt part represents the unconscious through which we draw in the consciousness (the biggest, most brilliant part of the painting) from all that is hidden (darkened). And so we restructure life just as I structured the graphics in red; more and more built up towards the left of the painting.
The touches of light represent ‘the awareness’, which lights on what we were and what we want to be.
William Vella - Untitled - L'-essentiale
After a long period away from my canvases, in 2005 I found delight in painting again. My unusual career development and my own story couldn’t find any echo in figurative painting. Abstract painting promptly brought me more freedom in expressing myself; in line with my emotions and maturity.
In 2006, I attended a lecture about the work of Hans Hartung. It was a shock to me. His work, his approach, his vision of painting, his biography… everything touches me in a very emotional way. Mondrian, Pollock, Poliakov, Soulages, Kandinsky, Hartung, Rothko, just to list a few, are to me an integral reference in abstract painting.
In another style, but just as striking, is the work of Louise Bourgeois, installed in 2008 at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. This gave me another impulse. The conscious or unconscious interpretation of her life and neurosis through her works touches me enormously. Such a strange echo will provide another orientation to my work.
Then, here is Minerve, a magical place which brings me to memories of my childhood. For many years, I have wished to settle here; to open a studio and create a place where art and men meet on easy terms. It is a dream comes true. It is my dream, it is my reality!
I paint to ‘tell’ what words can’t express but what the heart whispers.
Citation: ‘Art is emotion without desire’- Muriel Barbery: L’élégance du Hérisson
William Vella will be showing his work at Chateau l’Agel in November 2009 and at 111 les Arts de Paris later in the year.
William Villa - Expositions
- Also see: Jocelyne Doll-Soulaine - Artist With a Passion for Wildlife
