VICTOR URSI            -  France 

Biography and Artistic Journey

I was born on January 23, 1968 in Strasbourg to Apulian parents (Ruvo di Puglia and Bari) and I followed an educational path essentially oriented towards graphic art and painting.

After my studies at the University of Strasbourg, I taught visual arts at middle school for 13 years.

Since 2008 I have become a professional artist and painter.

At the beginning of my career I was mainly interested in abstraction, perhaps due to a solid training. At the same time, I began to create landscapes with an expressionist character.

For twenty years my sources of inspiration ranged from Romanticism to the abstract painting of the 1950s.

My abstraction was at first minimalist: I worked mainly starting from straight lines, somewhat in the continuity of a Malevich, or the American painters of the “Colorfield”.

In these works, I highlighted light as a resource of life (aquatic light), in the idea of a search for original purity. I worked in chiaroscuro without highlighting any object or subject: light and shadow were the only actors.

During this long abstract period, my taste for the figurative never ceased and the influence of abstraction was felt in the creation of my landscapes, especially in those evanescent, ethereal aspects. Visual reality became a kind of abstraction, a bit like Rothko’s early canvases.

Meanwhile, the practice of drawing and painting landscapes was also allowing an evolution of my abstract language.

First with the progressive introduction of colors and the strengthening of perspective; later, with the appearance of forms, reality could be evoked. Since these forms were sufficiently imprecise, they can suggest different approaches depending on the viewers.

It was not just a formal game but rather a spiritual search for a memory “before life”.

Even though I am perfectly at ease with the creation of abstract works, I always have a deep desire to improve, to deepen my figurative painting.

For five years now, I have started making copies of works exhibited in museums or from documents.

This has allowed me to learn new techniques, refine my pictorial language, and improve the completion of my work.

A new painting has emerged from this, with a religious character, which finds its reasons in the works of the 15th century and in the art of icons.

In this regard, I am enraptured by medieval and early Renaissance paintings that mix biblical scenes and idealized views of nature (Memling, Lochner, Schongauer, Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, etc.).

Since then, the need for abstraction has no longer been felt because it finds inspiration from figurative elements: unity is restored.

Today, my way of working has made great progress: I spend more time on the conception and realization of my paintings and leave little room for improvisation.

I am considering creating entirely figurative polyptychs, as was done in the Middle Ages.

Victor Ursi