Theo Vallier is not the first foreigner to get lost in the shadows of Phnom Penh, but he may be the first to do it in an elegantly artistic way. Phnom Penh has had the good fortune to have several very good shows lately and Théo's vision of the urban environment stands out.
Monsieur Vallier has created a series of paintings that look, well, odd. At first glance they appear to be jumbled street scenes: images of buildings and motos that you've seen before but could not express yourself. They seem to be frozen points in time, but not your time, someone else's: Théo's. You feel like you're looking at Phnom Penh through his eyes and he's myopic. Sorry, only kidding. He sees well, very well, and everything from the sky to rusted gates. His photo images are from someone's vantage point inside the scene rather than as a distant observer.
Théo must walk around a lot, a die-hard urban dweller, a guy who likes to look at everything. This show is really about being in tune with the vibration of the urban landscape, the rhythm and confrontation of urban life.
This work is based on photographs but without interesting photographs as a base, this work would not work. The paintings are essentially digital images from a small camera with a limited lens that creates distortions. The inherent distortions in the photos create interesting effects in the paintings. Unlike previous generations of artist/photographers Theo can make his own images, even manipulate them in photoshop before using them as guides. He doesn't need acquired images.
Based on the photographs, he paints an amazing vision of cityscapes; cityscapes so active, that they are literally rusting and oxidizing before your eyes. But there's more than that: there's a bit of mystery to the paintings: you aren't quite sure what they're made of. You may think they are paintings of photographs, but without color. They aren't black and white, they're almost sepia. But not quite. Maybe they're polarized? What are they? They are metaphors for the slow degeneration of the urban scene: solid metal slowly but steadily wearing down through constant action.
How does he make these odd paintings? The colors are rusty while the surface is extremely painterly. Theo uses a method of his own devise which incorporates rust, gouache, rusted surfaces and chemical reactions into the painting. The support, the part of the painting that holds the paint, is rolled sheet metal, that stuff you see around town because they use it for cheap signs. Theo starts by wetting the metal to cause a chemical reaction a.k.a. rusting. He loves the rust and he seems lost in it. It creates its own patterns and movements because of its inconsistent color. He then paints in white light using relatively thick gouache. White gouache is an opaque water based paint held together with gum arabic and tinted with pure white pigment. When water is added, even after the paint is dry, the gouache may become liquid again. With the gum arabic acting as glue, the gouache probably interacts with small particles of iron oxide (rust) that are on the surface of the painting and absorbs them into its compound. Hence, the white turns rusty. But since Vallier paints rather quickly, the metal and gouache aren't quite finished oxidizing at the time he wets the surface a second time. This time the darker areas become darker still, while the white areas become a mid-tone rusty red. A new layer of thick gouache is applied to light the painting again. The result is a tri-chrome painting: dark unadulterated rust, mushy pink rust and white gouache. However, within each color there is considerable variation. He then varnishes the surface to seal it and stop the interaction of materials. The cut metal sheet is attached to plywood on a traditional wooden backing. The sides are also painted giving the effect of looking into a diorama. All together it creates a powerful image.
Also in the show, but less interesting is a large black and white painting on one of the building walls. It is from a high vantage point and is reminiscent of a point of view Pissarro might have painted. Théo also painted a very large mirror with black paint and then scraped some of it away to make an image of a building. As a performance he used a razor blade to scrape away black paint to create graffiti-like images.
Théo Vallier's Phnom Penh Streets Will be exhibited at Gasolina (#56, Street 57)
From: January 16 to the 16th of February