Fama Volat

Fama Volat - The rumor has wings

Inseparable from each other, city and sea cohabit and coexist in a joyful comings and goings that has been going on for centuries. Iodized winds, beaches, shellfish, and fishing are part of Marseille's identity, its culture, kitchen, economy and daily life. This relationship represents a common thread that weaves together the city's history, local traditions, and life on the ground.

Looking at the work of Nicolas Nicolini and Théo Ouaki from this angle, we can see that living and creating in this context leads to an artistic synthesis in which urbanization and nature merge subtly through a common imagination. Nothing seems to link their paintings and sculptures except this syncretic relationship to a complex social fabric evolving in a heterogeneous urban landscape forged by the sea under the French Riviera sun.

The colors, materials and shapes of Nicolas Nicolini and Théo Ouaki's works evoke this common influence between earth and water, city and Calanques, concrete and sand. Nicolini's paintings conjure up an enviable natural environment from the window of his apartment, while Ouaki's ceramics seem to represent the port city and the diversity of its inhabitants from beaches filled with sea urchins, octopus, stones and shells.... It's hard to pinpoint a dialogue between the two, yet they both encourage us to think about our relationship with the world and its nature, based on the same imaginary and local issues.

Thibaut Wauthion