Re-interpreting and questioning iconography

The Hay Hill Gallery in Cork Street is this month featuring the paintings of Patrice Valota and Aigana Gali. Both artists explore the religious values, iconography and the alpha and omega of life through very different techniques, from the pigmented wax of Valota and the mixed medium oil and photographic art of Gali. Their exhibition features restful and powerful paintings interpreting the universe around us and our own beliefs.

Valota is a multi-facetted artist. In parallel to painting, he is also a successful actor and has appeared in international films. It was at the age of 38 that he finally decided to become a painter and three years later had his first one-man show at the Lavignes Gallery in Paris. The Hay Hill gallery is presenting his first show in London.

Valota has chosen wax as his main medium and paints with the flame of a blowtorch, mastering the fusion of melted matter and pigments to obtain a glowing surface. Wax sets off a very special light and gives a unique depth of colour to his work. With both classical and contemporary influences, he plays on contrast, offers abstract and figurative works, and mixes natural references with geometric lines. His 'Arborescence' series focuses on trees as the alpha and omega of life. For Valota, trees are like the cosmos, constantly regenerating themselves and the space around them.

Thoughtful painting, classical composition, Renaissance palette and unique photographic technique symbolise Aigana Gali's works. Relics and modern representations at once, her paintings evolve from re-interpreting and questioning Christian iconography. Christianity has always depicted its saints and even God with a human face. On the contrary, Islam forbids any pictorial depiction of holy characters. This has always fascinated Aigana since she was brought in a family where a religious mix of an Orthodox Christian mother and a Muslim father has provided her with endless themes for contemplation - the nature of God within human beings.
 
Gali was born in 1980 in Almaty (Kazakhstan) of Georgian/Kazakh descent and was raised in Kazakhstan, which is the ancient crossing on the Great Silk Road, where Asia and Europe mix to give the world a unique blend of culture. She has worked as an artistic director in a theatre and has featured in three main roles in Kazakh films. In 2009 she was nominated as a “Discovery of the Year” as an actress at the Eurasia Film Festival.


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Paul Simon - Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes.