RAPHY is the art of today
It is not the first time that in these columns we draw attention to this certainty: the creators who are creating the great art of our time are not those on whom are shone in the spotlight of the news.
We also know that the reader is eager to know the names of those who seem called to receive the consecration of this infallible art critic that is time.
The contact that has just been established between Raphy and us is too recent for us to be able to consider him with certainty as one of posterity's chosen ones, although we are not far from it, but what we can affirm is that what we have just seen in the presence of his exhibited work encourages us to take him very seriously.
As it appears that he, the painter, takes very seriously his job as a creative man, making it a total gift of his free time and all that he carries within him of possibilities of expression. It was not he who told us, but the thirty or so canvases hung on the picture rails of the Raincy art gallery quickly convinced us of it and we appreciated that Raphy, welcoming us during the visit to his exhibition , speaks only simple words of welcome.
Real paint doesn't need spiel.
This one immediately seizes the spectator by the perfection of the technique. Tasty material, without ever an exaggeration of thickness coming to taint with suspicion the play of the highlights on the tones obtained most often thanks to the skilful use of the glaze.
This masterful manipulation of color is certainly a major asset, but it is only one of the many assets at the author's disposal. His manual ease allows him to express without hesitation an inner poetry which, as far as we are concerned, has deeply touched us.
Real or unreal shapes, objects suggested more than described, interweaving of colored rhythms, subtle matter en counterpoint. Depth without planes. Lightness without sentimentality. And behind all this an infallible structure, the fruit no doubt of a very long previous work.
Nothing eccentric but nothing deja vu. All this smacks of authenticity, originality, honesty. What Raphy does is today's art, unlike anything painted in the past, but not denying that past.
Some of the great compositions communicate a happiness that is as far removed from cheerfulness as the light that bathes the work is removed from lighting.
In short, it is this search for a light obtained without the use of contrasts, therefore without resorting to black, which is the great characteristic of the exhibition which has just been shown at Raincy.
All this is the result of a long-term effort. We spoke earlier about the “free time” that Raphy had to paint. It is that this exceptional man, convinced without boasting of the importance of his mission as an artist, assumes like everyone else daily life by practicing a profession in itself already very absorbing and which has nothing to do with the 'art.
He sacrificed everything to painting. He deserves that it brings him the reward that so much courage, so much talent deserves.
The artist accomplishes himself in his totality, takes his work to the end of its conception and sometimes beyond, when he carries within himself, as the essential driving force of his approach, the spiritual intensity._cc781905-5cde- 3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ The imperatives then imposed on the creator dominate all the contingencies, mainly those which consist in taming the technique intended to be used for expression.
The man with the brush, in this case Raphy, no longer needs to wait for inspiration. She is in him and he can write his pictorial poem with the simplicity of the embodied gesture.
Each of the paintings that the visitor will discover at the town hall of the 2nd arrondissement carries in itself a part of this mystical passion, the translation of which by forms and colors inscribed on the canvas was for Raphy an imperious necessity.
Volutes, arabesques, masses and dustings, generators of light and emotions, express the inner world open to the other, ours, the everyday world to which the revelation of the mystery of a sensitive heart brings a rare quality of enchantment.
Michael BOUTIN
Director and Editor-in-Chief of L'Amateur d'Art
Article published in L'Amateur d'Art n°634 of November 1, 1978