Quayola – Strata #4

Posted by Fabio 17 October 2011

Strata #4 is a multi-channel immersive video-installation commissioned by Palais de Beaux Arts in Lille. The subject of this work is a series of iconic pieces from the museum’s Flemish collection, focusing specifically on Rubens’ and Van Dyck’s grand altarpieces. Strata #4 is the result of a study and exploration of the paintings themselves, delving beneath their figurative appearance and looking at the very rules behind the composition, colour schemes and proportions of each piece. It is a precise process aimed at creating new contemporary images based on universal rules of beauty and perfection. Documenting the improbable collisions between classical figuration and contemporary abstraction, Strata #4 aims to create an harmonious dialogue between worlds that may appear very distant from one another, but in fact share so much in common.

Super-high resolution images of the paintings have been assembled from many photographs shot in the museum. These files were then explored and analysed with the use of a custom software especially developed for this project. The aim of this software is to capture data related to the visual characteristics of the paintings, and then to generate complex geometric formations based on this data. The result is a series of geometric landscapes built within the very same rules behind the composition, colour schemes and proportions of the paintings themselves.

Quayola is a visual artist based in London. He investigates dialogues and the unpredictable collisions, tensions and equilibriums between the real and artificial, the figurative and abstract, the old and new. His work explores photography, geometry, time-based digital sculptures and immersive audiovisual installations and performances.