Provenance: Michel Tapié, Paris Galerie Stadler, Paris

ABOUT THE WORK

Tapaya metamorphoses a bald subject in a harlequin's outfit, as indicated by the lozenge pattern on the outfit, into a bestial and subhuman character, his teeth repeating the zigzag rhythms within the rounded contours of his head and body. The patterns only highlight the mingled oppositions to the dissonant dualities. It is typical of Tapaya that a heavily detailed brooding subject occupy a highly compressed space. His piercing eyes seem shocked at the sight of his vestigial arm, like it is some unwanted outgrowth of his body, while gesturing “Adios”. Subjects from fantastic allegories dominate in Tapaya’s mature work, to make the universal personal for his viewers. Long, broken brushwork of high key, dissonant colors all over the face and neck add to the wit, candor and grotesque irreverence that give his images poignancy. The viewer can revel in the brooding colors and gain insight with Tapaya’s capricious imagination. His art communicates with a succinct visual language that plays with associations triggered amongst the juxtaposition of elements present in the paintings. He turns the figures of his characters into phantoms; haunting a civilization where they have dominion over but don’t fully belong. As his paintings drift between figuration and abstraction, his works show nature and culture in a playful relationship with our technical world.