RAPHY

Beyond the visible

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It is not enough to look at the sky, we must go higher, aim for the ALL and, carried on the wings of imagination, fly into the cosmic immensity, rub shoulders with potential lightning before “The storm bursts and the thunder rumbles”, take “The path that climbs to the blue star”, be dazzled by a universe “All fire, all flame”, lose ourselves in the stellar spaces where time is abolished, where forms are in the process of becoming and suspended, the colors.

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And, harvest made of dreamlike visions, return to the land of men, to apprehend the mysterious “Spirit of the forest”, vibrate entirely to the rhythm of the “Song of the Incas”, smile at the renewal when “Time has left its coat of wind, cold and rain”, pray with a “Christmas Carol”, smile with that of the birds of “Paradise for my parents”. But also keep the flame alive in memory of the countless victims of “Genocide”, listen to Nana Mouskouri when she sings “The time of cherries” by a poet named Jean-Baptiste Clément who lost his love in the bloody days of the Commune. This is the spirit that Raphy’s art is based on.

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Primary colors strongly contrasting or complementing each other through the unifying feature of broken-toned passages, a paste with gem-like sparkles, gestural graphics that, coming from the mind, carry the hand, rhythmic in a time of perpetual movement; this is the style that, while being entirely what it is, resembles no other.

Are we witnessing a Raphy phenomenon? History will tell. Is the painting we have seen so exceptional that in writing about it, we measure the vanity of words?
To that we answer, YES.



Jacques DUBOIS
Critique for L'Amateur d'Art
Article published in L'Amateur d'Art No. 636 of December 1, 1978