FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MICHEL TABORI
February 2010

Michel Tabori was born in Paris in 1956 and grew up in New York. He spent more than two decades working as a director, producer and cinematographer living and working all around the world. However, his interest evolved; Tabori now works as a visual artist and is currently based in Venice, California. The artist’s rapid maturity and clarity of vision in this new medium are due, in part, to the fact that he has incorporated his cinematic expertise and visual creativity to the current process. In fact, much of his work starts out as a series of photographs.

Each one begins as an inspiration, occasioned by nature, by a person, by music. Not surprisingly, all are preoccupied with effects of light and motion. Some photographs are of forests, shot from a motorcycle at 75 miles an 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 portraits of people who have touched Tabori’s life. All are influenced by a sense of music, of rhythm. The photographs are then digitized, the images distilled to an elemental, abstract essence. 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 resin 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 and painting.

If you ask the artist, he will tell you that the works are “Flexible Light 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

Born in Paris and raised in New York, Tabori is currently based in Venice California. Tabori’s career spanned two decades in film before moving to still images, where he incorporates his cinematic expertise and visual acuity in his vibrant artworks.

Tabori describes his work as “flexible light installations,” meaning that the work has no absolute dimension. The piece is scaled to the context and space in which it is exhibited. The experience is subjective and variable. It involves light and shadow, surface and depth, reflection and refraction. All of Tabori’s works start out as one or more photographs. Each one begins from inspiration, occasioned by nature, by a person, by music. The photographs are then digitized and the images distilled to an elemental, abstract essence. Details are emphasized or obliterated in the process of enlargement. Colors are exaggerated and distorted to better reflect the underlying truth of the experience. The images are next transferred to canvas, where Tabori paints and covers them in a deep glossy resin. The end result of this mixed-media work of photography, digital imaging and painting is visually rich and arresting.
 

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

  • 2010 Dillon Gallery, Michel Tabori, New York City
  • 2009 The Edge Gallery, Three Days and Nights in the Desert, Santa Fe, NM
  • 2009 William Turner Gallery, No Time to Pretend, Santa Monica, CA
  • 2008 Dillon Gallery, Michel Tabori, New York City
  • 2007 William Turner Gallery, New Work II,  Santa Monica, CA
  • 2006 Berman Turner Projects, New Works, Santa Monica, CA
  • 2005 William Turner Gallery, New Work, Santa Monica, CA