Lot 202: - Abdelaziz Gorgi , Tunisian 1928-2008 Untitled acrylic and steel in wooden frame

acrylic and steel in wooden frame

measurements note 182 by 168 by 14cm; 71 5/8 by 66 1/8 by 5 1/2 in.

Executed in 2000, this work is unique.
Albert Memmi described Gorgi as a 'plaidoyer pro domo' - apart from the few years he spent in Paris mixing with the likes of Picasso, Zadkine, Soupault and Leiris, Gorgi remained close to his roots in the 'nourishing triangle' between Tunis, La Marsa and Sidi-Bou-Said. Consequently Gorgi's work reverberates with his Tunisian background, both in its form and practice. Gorgi's paintings and tapestries are often highly colourful and repeatedly feature tokens such as 'chechias', the traditional Tunisian headgear, which act to symbolize his personal background. Gorgi was also very active in encouraging the arts within his community, designing the first Tunisian postage stamp in 1956 and establishing the Tunis School of painting which he presided over until 1983. In 2000 his efforts were repaid when the Tunisian ministry of Culture decreed the year "Gorgi Year". Untitled, 2000 is the culmination of his work: the deformation and simplification or recurrent forms such as the chechias, fish, carrot and red heart - which is an allusion to his pictorial work of the same name The Red Heart, 1985. The works of Gorgi immortalize the timeless scenes of daily life, which he depicts with lines of great purity: Gorgi, quoted as a "painter of happiness, sensuality, laughter, music and tradition", is above all an artist of drawing.

Whilst studying at the newly established Tunis School of Fine Arts, Gorgi also discovered colour, which he sensitively approached, stating whilst still a young teenager "I don't see the sky as you do". Gorgi's palette, albeit highly coloured, is always softened by light. Light is often thought to consequence shadow, however Gorgi uses light to make the colours vibrate. In the case of Untitled, light animates the forms. Gorgi annuls all perspective and his grimacing characters thus seem to float in an enhancing dreamlike space.

"The artist doesn't copy the world, but dreams it, and tries to communicate this dream", Gorgi stated, and it is precisely because he dreamt of a world without lifts, that his characters appear to drift through the air. It is the solid construction of his compositions, centering his characters on an axis, that this lightness is attained, also recalling Gorgi's year spent working amongst eminent architects within the Ministry of Public works in 1948. His paintings, drawings and sculptures are constructed like monuments, a status they have also definitively acquired in the artistic patrimony of Tunisia.