Yvan Magnani

Deep Growth

What does Ivan Magnani paint? Only one thing through the diversity of his style: the Earth.

What does paint the Earth mean? Earth as the Earth?

Complicated matter, that may be insoluble. For this cannot be about painting the land either fields or mountains. Ivan Magnani certainly does not paint ‘landscapes’. Neither in a classical manner ( Poussin, Lorrain, Van Ruisdal…), where behind the thick grove and high foliage, behind the depth of the skies and of the distances the immensity of God’s greatness is suggested; nor as the impressionists ’ Monet, Pissaro, Sisley…) He does paint a landscape in its pure appearance, in its light vibration, in the shimmer of its colored surfaces. Only the Cezanne of the « Saintes Victoires » would be the closest to this apprehension of earth. But Cezanne still paints the ground from the ‘mountain’, from the phenomenon exposing itself into the light.

Earth as the Earth, who could possibly allow us access to its visibility ? Isn’t it the obscure in itself, the absolute invisibility ? It however where the painter sees things through a mist sees the kind of haze coming up and erasing the character’s features in more figurative works. The look becomes more obscure, sinks and darkens, that’s where Ivan Magnani takes us. ‘De profundis’ one would say in parody ! Into the bowels of the Earth. It is the place where those heavy and dark colors take us ?

Neither landscape, nor geology. Earth as the Earth is first of all the dark ‘growth’ (« Empujon » ) which germinates from the darkness of the deeps, which springs slowly and suddenly sprouts. Triangle of the blossom, red, bright, piercing through color of intense blacks that come alive, but, soon, under the power of this growth, earth pushes the frame away progressively, the ‘painting’, the painting tablature. Earth, the one holding everything together does not fit any longer into the frame, it eventually comes out and escapes. The Earth is not to be framed, neither is the painter’s canvas.

What mute and invisible growth does earth do then? On the one hand it raises canvas up which are no longer ‘hung’, ‘pinned’. The canvas spreads itself or stretches from the bottom to the top ( canvas which only have verticals ). This is the series of « Empujon » and « Volcaniques ». In those works, the grain of earth itself appears physically, geologically as layer or stratum into the heavy density of agglomerated sands. These layers are the one which carry the lit canvas into the silence and the tranquility of their presence. On the other hand, earth as growth becomes many folds. It folds and folds itself into hills and dales, hollows and bumps with sliding shadows. Earth slowly shivers, « Reliefs-frissons ». It hovers in its immobility, and it gleams, bringing its slow and immemorial vibration, heavy and safe, into the light.

Empujon, Volcaniques, Reliefs-frissons, through all those series, one and only attempts to nature, ‘Phusis’, not as enlightening an irruption into the light, but from is light of colors one carries with him/herself, to paint what in nature cannot be painted, its heavy and concealed growth, its underground ascension from nightly, enclosed, mute thickness.

Philippe MENGUE, Dec 96

IVAN MAGNANI

Born in Djebel Kouif, Algeria, on the 25 th November 1946. His family settled in Rennes (France) where he went to school. He took his choice for fine arts in 1964.

At the age of eighteen, he left Rennes and Brittany with his family to continue his Art education in the south of France. Among other things he learnt pottery and ceramics in Vallauris. During this period he painted his first canvases. This style was then influenced by painters such as Serge Poliakoff, Nicolas de Staël, Robert and Sonia Delaunay.

On 1966 he studied at the Brera Academy in Milan (Italy), where he carried off the third prize at the end of the year. The following year he joined the Royal Academy of Stockholm but quickly returned to Paris, with the aim of studying at the "Ecole du Louvre".

Between 1968 and 1975 he went back to Vallauris while keeping his artistic activities mostly in Italy. Many exhibitions followed, notably Genoa, Florence, Milan, Plaisance, etc...

In 1979, after a year in St Tropez, on the French Riviera, he finally settled in Apt where he created his own workshop. He then ran painting classes and launched out on "Mural Frescoes". This new form of expression after he realized many works in the region of Apt, led him to decorate a large Reception Room at the Hotel Marrakesh, Marocco.

Yvan Magnani is currently working on large canvases having gradually moved away from abstract art, his research is now oriented towards a special form of expressionism. He actually achieves his particular work of painting by using together brushes, palettes and airbrush. His greatest productivity lies in the realm of watercolours. He finds his inspiration in the outlines of the Luberon and south of France horizons.