MICHEL TABORI APHRODISIA
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
MICHEL TABORI
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
APHRODISIA
APHRODISIA
We are excited to introduce Aphrodisia, a new series of deeply sensual abstract paintings by Michel Tabori. The works are a leitmotif on love, expressed through the emotional rhythms of color and light.
After years immersed in the magical spell of California light, first as a cinematographer then as an artist, Michel Tabori left his Venice studio five years ago for Paris. Returning to the country of his birth, Tabori says he felt compelled to explore his roots and the atmospheric light of the Impressionists.
The works comprising Aphrodisia are the result, and are a dramatic departure from Tabori’s preceding work. In Europe, Tabori’s attention shifted from the visceral roar of a Harley Davidson exploring the California coast, to the siren songs of literature, particularly, the Classics of Ancient Greece, Spanish Flamenco and the French appreciation of rêve d’amour, or the “dream of love.”
Tabori sees these new works as abstract, poetic reactions to deeply personal experiences that explore notions of love, eroticism, identity and gender fluidity. These microcosms of personal anecdotes often begin as photographs, which are then manipulated, transformed and ultimately utilized as reference points within the abstract paintings that evolve. In Aphrodisia, Tabori synthesizes mythologies of ancient Greece with personal memory, to capture, in light and color, ephemeral aspects of a mutable moment.
Flamenco is rendered in Red Soleá Andolusian Aching Heart. Traditionally, the performance itself is divided into many parts, the Soleá being the central portion in reverence to romance and despair. Silhouetted dancers are depicted here awash in various shades of crimson light, as observed by a man who falls in love with a female dancer with unequivocal desire.
Red Soleá Andalusian Aching Heart
mixed media, acrylic on 3d canvas mounted on panel, 33” x 90”
In the painting titled Sappho’s Apparition, Tabori references the 7th century B.C. Greek poetess from the island of Lesbos. Several ancient sources have referred to her as the “tenth Muse”. Her lyric poetry was often written to be sung, with the accompaniment of music for symposiums of women. These symposiums were gatherings for drinking, discussion, dancing, and love-making. As Tabori’s muse, the image frames a window into a metamorphosis of sunlight and shadow. Modulations of silhouetted figures dance in concert, vaguely materializing as a thousand different glimpses of a constantly changing scene.
In a coup d’oeil, or “stroke of an eye,” Tabori arrests a fleeting moment as the Impressionists were celebrated for.
Sappho’s Apparition, mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 51” x 52”
Eros Symposium mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 61” x 84”
“I want the viewer to feel the rush of natures’ unbounded existence, its burst of infinite color and light and its endless process of renewal in the abstract blur of the world racing by -- the higher the speed, the more powerful the experience.”
-Michel Tabori
Pink, mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 60” x 56”
Blue Iris In A Purple Haze mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 55” x 48”
mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 57” x 50”
Blue Poppy In A Field Of Flowers
Iris At High Speed mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 44” x 109”
Blue Dream Chanel Number 5, mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 56” x 44”
In Blue Dream Chanel Number 5, Tabori reflects on a memory of unrequited love where a woman passed by him on the street in Paris and all that remained of her evanescent presence was a waft of her Chanel Number 5. The vivid blue sky of that day and the cloud he dreamt of sharing with her are imagined in this sensual depiction of an erotic dream.
Blue Poppy In A Red Field mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 66” x 64”
mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 66” x 69”
Iris and Sunflower in a Green Field
Poppy In A Field Of Sunflowers
mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 55” x 55”
mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 37” x 40”
Sakura
Poppy In A Field Of Sunflowers #2, mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 48” x 40”
Green Field Nightfall mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 43” x 111”
Sea of Poppies in a Green Field mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 36” x 47”
Sunflowers At Midday mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 57” x 70”
At Sunset mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 57” x 70”
Sunflowers
Sea Of Poppies in a Green Field
mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 53” x 108”
MELANIE MELANIEPULLENPULLEN MELANIE PULLEN
Dream mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 37” x 96”
Tangerine
Orgia, alludes to the ancient Greek mystic cult ceremony in honor of Dionysus (otherwise known as Bacchus), the Greek god of wine-making, fertility, festivity, ritual madness and religious ecstasy. This ecstatic form of worship in mystic exaltation was thought to liberate one from their ego, self-conscious fear and undermine the authority of the more powerful. The stripes depicted in this work are symbolic allusions representing the degrees to which one participates (or doesn’t) in whichever endeavor they so choose. The vivid colors and stripes celebrate the bon vivant spirit of the god as an allegorical device, personifying his animating principle.
Orgia, mixed media on canvas mounted on panel, 55” x 65”
MICHEL TABORI
Michel Tabori was born in Paris in 1956 and grew up in New York City. He spent almost forty years working as an award winning cinematographer, director and producer, living and working all over the world. Fourteen years ago, in a life-changing shift, Tabori left cinematography to become a visual artist, with a studio in Venice, CA. The artist’s new direction was an immediate success. Tabori’s rapid maturity and clarity of vision as a visual artist were due, in part, to the fact that he applied much of his cinematic expertise to his approach to painting. In fact, most of his work begins as a series of photographs, or digital images, which are then transferred to canvas to serve as the foundations for his paintings.
Tabori plays with these photographs and digital images, distilling them to an elemental, abstract essence. The resulting compositions engage on visual and emotional levels, and are often inspired by nature, by a person, or by music. Many involve explorations of the effects of light and motion. Some begin as photographs of forests, shot from a motorcycle at 75 miles per hour while traveling through Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains. Some are of landscapes reflected off the spur of a boot or the barrel of a gun. Some are abstract portraits of people who have touched Tabori’s life. All are infused with a sense of poetry, music, and rhythm.
Essential details are emphasized and enlarged. Colors are exaggerated and distorted to better reflect the underlying truth of the experience. Selected elements of these images are then transferred to canvas, where Tabori paints on them. They are then poured with lacquer and painted again, often several times, giving the work multiple optical layers above the paint. The end result is work best described as “mixed-media.” It is, and is not, photography, digital imaging, optical installation and painting. If you ask the artist, he will tell you that the works are “Flexible Installations,” meaning that the work has no absolute dimension, but rather flows like liquid in scale to the context in which it is exhibited. The experience is subjective, variable. It involves light and shadow, surface and depth, reflection and refraction. It is the poetry of a moment and the moment is never static.
As Tabori sums up, “The surface of the canvas for me is not the primary focus. I am more concerned with movement in it and around it and also how that movement is constantly changing. The paintings are meant to interact with what is reflected in the environment, to include it as an integral part of the piece. In this sense, looking at the piece is, for me, more about moving through it, looking at it from different angles. I love the idea of people looking at a piece of overwhelming scale, or in
a crowded room, where it is impossible to take it all in unobstructed, to see the entire piece at once. This way, the work is always changing.”
Michel Tabori recently relocated from Paris to Spain, where he currently lives and works.
MICHEL TABORI
BORN: 1956 Paris, France
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Aphrodisia – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2019 Michel Tabori – Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2018 Reflections Of Nature In Motion – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2014 In Search Of Lost Time – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica
2013 Sex and Proust: Remembrance of Things Past – Dillon Gallery, New York, NY
2010 Michel Tabori – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2010 Michel Tabori – Dillon Gallery, New York City, NY
2009 Three Days and Nights in the Desert – THE Edge Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2009 No Time To Pretend – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2008 Solo Show – Dillon Gallery, New York, NY
2007 New Work II – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2006 New Works – Berman Turner Projects, Santa Monica, CA
2005 New Work – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Confluence – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica
2021 Artchild – 84/88/90 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, France
2018 Playa del Rey William Turner Gallery, Playa del Rey, CA
2015 That’s My Trip – Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY
2015 Michel Tabori- Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA
2015 Ethereal – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2013 Art Miami – Miami, FL
2012 Art Miami – Miami, FL
2011 Art Miami – Miami, FL
2010 Art Miami – Miami, FL
2008 Opening Exhibition – THE Edge Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2008 Opening Exhibition – Jett Gallery, San Diego
2008 Super Cool – William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2008 Liquid Light – Museum of Design Art and Architecture, Culver City, CA
2008 TEN – Toomey-Tourell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008 Finish Fetish – MMFA Gallery, Palm Springs, CA
2007 The Art of Harmony – Zimmer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2007 Liquid Light – dba Gallery, Pomona, CA
2007 Reflections – Dillon Gallery, New York, NY
2007 Red Dot Art Fair – Miami, FL
2007 Art Now Fair – Miami, FL
2007 Red Dot Art Fair – Toomey-Tourell, New York, NY
2006 Abstract Notions – Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA, Satellite Exhibition, Santa Monica, CA
2006 Bridge Art Fair – Toomey-Tourell, Chicago, IL
DONATIONS
Venice Family Clinic Venice, CA
Inner City Arts Los Angeles, CA
Zimmer Museum Los Angeles, CA
Doctors Without Borders New York, NY
UNICEF/UNIFEM New York, NY
International Rescue Committee New York, NY
MICHEL TABORI
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
APHRODISIA
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY