Volery Gallery, Dubai will be hosting a solo exhibition by French urban artist Thomas Canto this coming 14th of October 2022. The personal exhibition Etherealities by Thomas Canto led the artist to settle in the region to develop and design the artworks presented at the heart of the subject they evoke: The city, in this case, Dubai, its perspectives, its reflections, and its incessant development. Agreeing with the fact that the issues raised by the work of Thomas Canto would have a particular echo in the region. The two protagonists designed the Etherealities set based on a common reflection:
The recurring themes in Thomas Canto's work resonate directly with the city of Dubai and its infinite expansion. These uninterrupted constructions that stretch towards the sky, made of metal, glass and cables; materials found in the artist's works; echo the architectural fragments represented by his works.
The two series presented for this personal exhibition. are intimately linked to the city where they were created. Thus the artist was able to add to his Dubai inspirations, to make the creations a little more universal, based on photos taken in major megalopolises and whose visual mix allows him to create places that are both familiar and chimerical. These compositions seem identifiable with the direct environment of the exhibition space, reinforcing the issue of globalization evoked in the artist's work.
The personal exhibition Etherealities by Thomas Canto is structured around the presentation of two series of works that are opposed by their formal aspect: painting and sculpture. Their tone: black/white and color. The academic format of the paintings confronts the hybrid format of the sculptures. However, their theme is the same: urban architecture and urban landscapes. These works present a vision of infinite rhythms, verticality, and visual harmony. They also refer to ideas of alienation or loss of bearings. These are sensations that anyone can experience by experimenting with the geometric constructions that constitute the megalopolises of the whole world.
The main apparent inspiration of these works "the Cities" represents for the artist a concentration or a superposition of realities of which he endeavors to show the multiple interactions.
However, the urban landscapes represented in his works are not the only subject of this visual research. These creations suggest to the spectator to browse its structures to be interested in their hidden parts like their design, the power, the system, and its mechanisms. This is what defines their infinite development. It is a way of questioning the depth of our perception of this direct environment.
For years, the artist has continuously dealt with architecture and the subject of urbanity in his work. It represents the city as a dynamic object and a living entity. Thomas Canto has often asked the question of the purpose of contemporary urban life: how we build, how we consume, and how we experience our cities.
The paintings presented for Etherealities are inspired by existing places that the artist has experienced. The choice to name them in a similar way induces the idea of the globalization of contemporary architecture throughout the world. Their minimal tones evoke an almost binary and inhuman rhythm. They question the development of impersonal architectural ensembles, beyond individual considerations.
When the artist reveals these refined environments, it allows him to crystallize the idea of infinite development. It is inspired by the way the current urban space is constructed. The feeling of profusion, of superposition of shapes, lines, and perspectives illustrates the way in which this phenomenon can be perceived by those who create it and experience it: Humans.
In contrast to the paintings, a selection of sculptures in cut stainless steel, from the series entitled Structural Reflections, was designed for this exhibition. These three-dimensional works evoke another temporality. The treatment of the urban subject is more abstract and kinetic. By freeing himself from the traditional framework that is the canvas, the artist integrates the dimension of temporality in a different way. He combines spatial reordering and temporal reordering, drawing inspiration from the interior and exterior spaces that he associates. His meticulously created works trigger a temporalization of space through collaboration with a mobile audience. In these works, the aesthetic space is enriched and expanded through interaction with the viewer. He is invited to put the city in motion himself by choosing his own point of view. This experience is intensified by the layering of a more figurative element (front part) with a more abstract element (back part). This part of abstraction is induced by the infinite reflections produced by the treatments applied to the interior faces of the works. This contrast between the two parts that make up the sculptures places the viewer in a temporal and visual in-between. It asks questions about the relevance of constructions and creates a unique experience.
These decontextualized fragments of architecture also belong to conceptual art. They make us live the transition by which any object, a building, a tunnel, switches into another universe, that of Art. By extracting them from their environment and reinterpreting them, Thomas Canto gives them a new identity.
A tool for reflection, the work allows us to see ourselves, read ourselves, to feel this transition taking place within us. These readings are as important as the physical presence of the multiple openings that make up the work. This transformation, through the work of the consciousness which operates this manipulation of the body, is only possible through physical interaction with the works. It is by establishing this link between the work and the public that the invisible will be revealed.
Opening Reception:
October 14, 2022 | 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Exhibition Dates:
October 14 - November 7, 2022 | 1:00 PM - 7:00 PM
For inquiries and to register interest on the Preview List please email info@volerygallery.com.
