Cbdgallery
Cbdgallery
  • Home
  • About
  • Exhibitions
  • Art Workshop
  • Artists
  • Subscription
  • More
    • Home
    • About
    • Exhibitions
    • Art Workshop
    • Artists
    • Subscription
  • Home
  • About
  • Exhibitions
  • Art Workshop
  • Artists
  • Subscription

FRAGMENTS OF ETERNITY

BORIS TOUCAS 

Solo Exhibition

20th Nov - 21st Dec 2024

Opening Wed 20th Nov 6-9PM

This exhibition will be opened by Barbara Moore

CEO of the Biennale of Sydney


Passages in Ballpoint 

By Melissa Bianca Amore

……………………

“There is no other case in which the memory which recalls is sure to obey the memory which repeats. Everywhere else, we prefer to construct a mechanism which allows us to sketch the image again, at need, because we are well aware that we cannot count upon its reappearance.” 

                      Henri Bergson, 2004[1]


Does memory obey observation or is it a series of recollections from another’s history? At what point can we accept the reality we perceive without contamination? Layered with overlapping histories, Boris Toucas’s personal portraits, acting as miniature memorial sites, reveal a human vulnerability and our unremitting need to preserve or record our most intimate encounters. Rendered in ballpoint: the ubiquitous tool synonymous with the “doodle,” Toucas’s drawings in Fragments of Eternity are recorded moments from exchanges with iconic masterpieces, landscapes, people and psychological spaces. Presented as a successive series, representing both interior and exterior worlds, these fragments of memory give the impression of entering a lucid dream or a continuous stream of consciousness. 


What perhaps began as diaristic musings with a pen; as purposeless play or doodling, through the simple act of drawing, Toucas reminds us that acute observation opens new pathways to recollection. “The emotion that I feel when I draw is flow. It’s a distraction from the present world,” Toucas remarks. “I see it as a meditative process, beyond consciousness, when you deliberately get rid of what’s intellectual.” Known to many as a diplomat, this exhibition marks a return to drawing since his early teenage years. For this French artist, it was the expansive Australian landscape, depicted in the watercolours by Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira, and a return to the heart of ancestral memory, that triggered a nostalgia for drawing; where exchanges become fragments of eternity. 


The mixture of disparate subject-matter in these works, from Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, 1506, alongside the acclaimed Indigenous scholar and activist Marcia Langton, and the French romantic painter Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, 1819 to Ancient Wisdom, 2024 depicting a tree of knowledge from Western Australia, interestingly provides insights into how our personal encounters become entwined with collective memories. The artist’s ability to invite the viewer as an ambivalent observer into his captivating encounters, with either Marcia or the Mona Lisa, obscures the act of recognition and of recollection. “These pictures, with their radiant and melancholic blue, represent unique moments I lived, experienced and felt first-hand,” he says. “While they capture tiny slices of an ordinary life, they are also a secret window into my own intimate world. Most are linked to untold personal stories and feelings, that only few "initiates" can unlock.”  


Known as the “hour blue” or L'heure Bleue, the monochrome blue-light illuminated in these drawings, create a chromatic auratic temporal shift from day into night and from the bodily to incorporeality.  The use of the ballpoint, which is characteristically connected with handwriting and language, also pronounces a type of reflexivity or shift from author to artist. Despite the perception as being a product of mass culture and discredited as an artistic medium, the ballpoint was employed by many acclaimed artists from the 1950s, such as Cy Twombly, Alighiero Boetti, Lucio Fontana and IL Lee, as well as Andy Warhol, as a drawing tool. For artists like Boetti, the ballpoint was explored as a type of decoding device or lens into the layers of the universe; revealing its system of codes, coordinates, structure, signs–and indexicalities of order, chaos and harmony.


For Toucas, the ballpoint, with its immediate and permanent nature, is used as a different type of mapping apparatus and precision tool; attempting to enter the layers of his own personal archive and interactions with the world. “A pen can’t lie: what’s on paper stays on paper. The process of drawing freehand, without a grid or pencil, an eraser or a magnifier, is a deliberating excruciating journey towards redemption.” Mechanical in nature, the ballpoint has two basic functions–turning and grinding, producing detailed cadences: shadow, tonality and spatiality, made from the interplay of points and lines. These basic coordinates, are the connecting structural elements that visualize the world we perceive. 


Within a commonplace beauty lives the monumental in Fragments of Eternity; inviting us to reconsider the art of observation through the mechanics of “doodling;” which begin as recollections or passages in ballpoint. “The ballpoint is a precision tool and it creates a different image to the camera. Anyone can press a button to take a picture, but how do you make sure it’s your memory; reflecting your own emotions and past. Even as people live with my drawings, they will still be my memories, even obfuscated they live through another medium, and I like that.”


Melissa Bianca Amore is an art critic, philosopher and curator based between Melbourne, Paris and New York. 

    

[1] Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory (London: Dover Philosophical Classics), 103 

VIEW E-CATALOG

ARTWORK

A Secret Garden, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

22.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of my private garden in Suva.

Olivier, His Dog and..., 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

22.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A portrait of Olivier Varenne, MONA's artistic director and art dealer.

Going to Church in Suva, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

27.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of the Fiji Parliament, people going to church.


The Cut, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


A view of Queen Victoria market on a special day.


An Idea of Freedom, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

25 x 30cm Framed


My second all time favourite French painting.


What's on the Horizon, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

25 x 30cm Framed


My all time favourite French painting.


The Cauldron, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

22.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of the Louvre, during the Olympic Games (the Cauldron is on the opposite side and does not appear in the picture).

Reflecting on the Past, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

27.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of the Place du Parlement in Bordeaux.

Showered Illusions, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


A detail of the Fontaine des Girondins in Bordeaux where I studied.

French Interlude, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

25 x 30cm Framed


A view of Dinan in Bretagne.

The Beating Heart of the City, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

27.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of Brick Lane in Melbourne, from the other side.

The Quiet Lady, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


A view of Notre Dame in Paris.

Ticking Clock, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on  Stonehenge Paper

27.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of Sydney City Hall in Sydney.

You're Looking for Something, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

30 x 25cm Framed

The Blue Woman, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


Dhambit is a famous disabled artist, who's work is featured in many collection and has been presented around a globe, here working in her hometown at Buku Larnggay.

Marcia, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


Marcia Langton is a famous scholar and Indigenous activist.

The Prayer, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


Errawan Shrine is one of the most revered Hindu shrines in Thailand.

Nostalgy of Old Times, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

27.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of the night market in Center District, Hong Kong, very intimate with a window to the global city surrounding it.

Mixed Feelings, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on National Archives Paper

34 x 42.5cm Framed


Hosier Lane is a very popular street in Melbourne, although it's hard to find anything attractive when looking up close.

An Idea of Australia, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


The combination of tropical plants and skyscrapers is like a condensed picture of Australia.

Distant Beauty, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


A view of the Sydney Harbour bridge.

Train to Nowhere, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 22.5cm Framed


A view of the Canberra train, which has become a tourist attraction but run as fast as the current (derelict) train line between Canberra and Sydney.

Bridging Two Worlds, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


A view of Tharwa Bridge, which separates the suburbs of Canberra from the uninhabited Namadji National Park.

Hurrying to Work, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

30 x 25cm Framed


People rushing to work on a busy sunny morning in front of Queen Victoria building.

Taken by Iphone, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


A view of Fedsquare at sunset with a borrowed smartphone.

Together, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


Semi-finals of the Australian Open 2024 and a cheerful atmosphere.

Crossing the Desert, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


The Flinders Range, an area inhabited for 10000s of years.

Ancient Wisdom, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


Ancient trees in Western Australia. First use of complex shading on trees and grass.

Where the World Ends, 2024

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

27.5 x 22.5cm Framed


One of the famous beaches south of Perth.

Sky Bringing Peace to Water Down Under, 2023

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


The reflecting skypool of the Veriu Hotel, overlooking the Queen Victoria Market area.

Soft Land, Rough Seas, 2023

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


Bondi Beach on a stormy day.

A Working Day in Sydney, 2023

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


A quiet and sunny Friday morning in Bondi Beach.

The Night Falling on Our Dreams, 2023

The Night Falling on Our Dreams, 2023

Ballpoint Pen on Manufactus Paper

22.5 x 27.5cm Framed


Night view of South Bank, people in the dark.

  • Art Workshop
  • Artists
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

CBD GALLERY

72 Erskine Street, Sydney NSW, Australia

Copy Right © 2023 Cbdgallery

Cbdgallery

This website uses cookies.

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

Accept