Jérémy Demester | MUCCIACCIA CONTEMPORARY
A BUON RENDERE
curated by Natacha Carron Vullierme
15 Dec 2017 – 20 Feb 2018
The Mucciaccia Contemporary gallery reconfirms its tradition and welcomes artists to its location in Rome. Of course, today, it is no longer a matter of allowing nations to gain favor with Caesars through the paintings of their young artists. It does not even concern a nonchalant curiosity for all that is Ancient, nor of acquiring ancestral techniques deemed necessary for the palette of a master. It is, rather, that of offering to the eyes of the artist what is absolutely unique in Rome and what characterizes it, beyond its cultural and political history. Namely: light.
Jérémy Demester is a man who reacts to light, with a double meaning: he is singularly responsive to light and, at the same time, he reacts to each thing as a result of light. This occurs because he is ever in motion, in that, a certain relocation, or even a certain nomadism, is indispensable when studying and understanding light. Light, in his works, is never received, but it is acquired. Like a plant, which also seeks it in imperceptible movements, through instant decisions that determine its orientation. Jérémy Demester’s brain acts in the same manner, following light. Jérémy Demester decides where to establish his studio space each time as he goes along. This lets him create a space that belongs to him. The result of a narrative process that originates from a journey. A journey that is completed through him. What is created at every stage is only, in part, an expression of the specific site where he has established his studio and is already included within the journey that constitutes the artistic project.
Since it speaks of the light and the movement it requires, Jérémy Demester’s painting speaks of time, of immediacy, of the proof of the instant, of confidence, without which it is impossible to live the moment and without which life is impossible. It is the expression of a vital and positive force, not devoid of interrogatives, but that does not let itself be intimidated and reaches beyond. Each canvas represents a breathing movement, in line with the vital breaths of the surrounding world. The soul, as the apostle Pietro once stated, is not a substance separate from the body, but it is the breath (pneuma) that gives shape to the flesh and soul. In particular, Jérémy Demester’s skies materialize this natural and spiritual shape of touch they embody, with the inexhaustible diversity of unprecedented and mercurial forms deriving from a nature observed at the very moment during which its essence is breathed. The origins of the sky, of the sea, of the earth and of fire are both unique and originate from the same source. This is what Jérémy Demester represents and paints with a special, sensible touch.
The surface of his canvas vibrates, moved by the breeze of the sea as the day comes to an end, or else how clouds as white as milk are drawn on a sky as its horizon is delicately warmed by the rays of the sun. When our eyes as spectators become scrutinizers, they fill with light or, more precisely, with the splendor that emanates from a surface. It is, therefore, important to understand the importance of white and its additives. The absence of color, non-color, predominates over everything else, there where our retina may not perceive nothing else but a white monochromatic image. Yet, it is exactly at this moment that Jérémy Demester’s attention awakens. One must not become inured to white. One must not be lulled by the sweet acclaim of a graceful painting. A break is vital. It requires sacrifice, such as the head that is violently missing in the representation of a dog. This touch is like the rhythm in a score. The transition from abstract to figurative happens rhythmically. The transition from impression to narration is not hierarchical. It occurs in counterpoint, as in music. An invisible metronome moves in the background of an instant and gives way to the truth of the present moment and of a nature that is only apparently immediate. Keeping this rhythm, the canvases are sometimes covered by a lush, invasive, and suffocating vegetation, which is the materialistic expression of a pantheistic vitality. Perhaps the only acceptable perspective for our future.
Next stop: Jérémy Demester’s home in Rome, which follows the evolution of the City of eternal changes.
Born in 1988, Jérémy Demester, investigates and experiences various possibilities in painting. He does not belong to a group of painters. The son of gypsies, he is committed to a continuous quest, driven by the desire to experiment. His technique is very similar to painting. It oscillates between abstraction and figurative art, combining the finesse of oils with the brush strokes of a bodyshop mechanic. His artistic journey is characterized by a nomadic childhood, his dogs, training in various applied art schools and also the School of Fine Arts in Paris. He helps us understand the nature of his painting, conceived as a “commixture”, where countless esoteric and alchemical symbols emerge or are hidden, which transform something completely impure into an extraordinary abstract reality. The new location of the Muccaccia Contemporary gallery is a still-undefined promise that will give way to his practical character, setting out rules that are explicitly thought out for Rome, in order to transcend all conventions. This new manner of painting offers the spectator the visual equivalent of a scientific phenomenon.
MUCCIACCIA CONTEMPORARY
Piazza Borghese, 1/A
Rome
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