NICOLETTI, London
Boris Camaca, Loreum
NıCOLETTı presents a duo exhibition by London-based, American artist Loreum (the artistic practice of Tyler Eash, 1988, Marysville, CA) and French artist Boris Camaca (1987, France), who are both represented by the gallery. Featuring new works as well as pieces resulting from mutual exchange between both artists, the presentation explores the role of fiction, fantasy and self-mythology in processes of identity formation.
At Art-o-rama, Camaca presents a series of photographic portraits of Loreum, taken during encounters between the two artists in London. Focusing their attention on Loreum as an artist who often uses his body as a medium in his practice through series of performances, Camaca’s photographs capture moments that occurred in Loreum’s studio, documenting the latter’s intimacy while questioning traditional modes of representation of masculinity. Through a singular aesthetics combining heavy saturation of colours, fictional scenario and meticulous mise-en-scène, Camaca’s images depart from the idealized vision of the male body rather expressing the tension between vulnerability and self-performativity at work within processes of identification.
Loreum expands on these ideas through a series of paintings on cowhide, a material alluding to life conditions in rural California, where the artist was partially raised by a Maidu and Modoc grandmother. Entitled Angels, these works addresses the artist’s multi-ethnicity by revisiting the biblical figure of the angel, departing from its European representation as a human-like being to reconnect with its descriptions in American Indian traditions, in which angels were significantly more abstract, symbolizing the holiness of nature and the inherent power of psyche and spirit. Here, the angel becomes a figure whereby Loreum addresses the issues of cultural erasure facing the American Indian, using spirituality and mythology as tools to reconnect with one’s identity while pinpointing the constant interweaving of facts and fiction in the affirmation of self.
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