22homer-22-06-08.jpg Dessin par John Gorman

For this self-portrait, the artist has chosen to represent himself as a ‘’Homer’’, which immediately convokes ambiguity and trouble, as the Homeric Question – by whom, a single man or several ones, when, where and under what circumstances were the ‘’Iliad’’ and ‘’Odyssey’’ composed – continues to be debated. Anyway, the fact that he identified himself as a blind bard is, for a creator of visual works, disturbing. Like an extension of this topic, the almost liminal and tormented face can only be guessed through a kind of filter, as if it was deeply buried in the paper, as if the artist and his alter ego were coming from very ancient times, appearing like ghosts who would return, or, precisely, were hesitating to return. The lack of any precise line which would have defined the contour of this unsettling face forces the viewer to see beyond the immediate, the eyes as pulled out, the mouth, a bloody mash. Therefore one faces here not only a blind artist but also a mute poet. The surface of the drawing is speckled by vibrations, composed of vertical and horizontal stripes, the choice of black charcoal, on this red background, stating both the distress and the uniqueness which characterise the artist at work.
As the face of the creator disappears, burying itself more and more deeply in the paper which gave it birth, as this self-erasure occurs, leaving the door open for the falsifications our current world has favoured, abandoning the Greek lessons, the viewer foresees that, right before him, an event arises, which is merely not the emergence but the confirmation of the advent of a new art.