Copyright © TAPRAH

TAPRAH

TEXTS

Text by Rui Alberto (written in 1990):

Taprah invents characters that are strange and nice and  at the same time, which silhouettes evoke, in a way, the stylization of African sculptures (rigour of the line, search of an overall shape balance, harmonious integration to the support, expressiveness of some of the features, conveyed by the game of shapes and lines).

Sometimes they appear in spaces with very sharp shadows, depicted by a blazing sun, or outlined on warm-color skies, colors of sand and sun countries.

The artist uses various medium (canvas, wood, cardboard) and sometimes juxtapose volumes in a very ingenious way, as one would combine words to create poetic images. 

A Christopher Columbus' dream

Text by Pierre Souchaud (published in the Magazine ARTENSION in March 2004).

Taprah's images come down directly from a "magical mountain", from where one would have a panoramic and detailed view of the world here below. Some micro hitches of dreamlike inspiration? Playful? Shadowy-erotic? One doesn't know for sure. Probably all at once.

An hybrid surreality where Africa, South America and India come together and even so with a slight Occidental touch.

A great journey around the globe that would have had Christopher Columbus fantasize.

TAPRAH  

On the day of my birth, the first of October 1945, a Sunday at 10pm in Chamonix - Mont- Blanc, the earth shook underneath my crib and opened partway - and I found myself at the bottom of a crevasse where, perhaps under the effect of the impact, I immediatly started engraving my first hieroglyphs.

After many long years spent icebound, one day the thaw carried me away sliding...towards the capital.

 

To be continued...