57th Venice Biennale

                                          Pavilion of the Republic of Armenia

In their science fiction novel Roadside Picnic, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky imagine animals, birds and insects emerging from their hiding places after having watched with terror all night as a group of friends enjoyed themselves around a bonfire, listening to music.1 Such a scene can be compared to the experience that Rafael Megall’s works offer, in particular regarding the sense of something that has already taken place. A more defined reference can be found in the ritualistic dimension embedded within the artist’s research: we witness the paintings after something has already occurred, whether it be a ritual or a less precisely defined action. The lack of narrativity in Megall’s research releases a thrilling energy, particularly brilliant in an epoch in which the stories behind works often take over. In order to experience the works in their full integrity no words must be uttered; the tools the artist provides live within the canvas.

Although the subject of the series The Panthers in my Blossoming Garden, a wild feline, evokes a sense of movement and aggressiveness, the technique used describes more of a static dimension.
The intensive use of plain colours, along with a total absence of shadows, indeed highlights a sense of stillness, reminding the spectator of the cloisonné technique. This, a peculiar decoration style known already in Egypt and by the Longobards, was mostly used for enamels. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments to the metal object by soldering or affixing silver or gold wires or thin strips placed on their edges. Alveoli, or cells (cloisons in French), are welded or glued onto a support plate, where enamel is cholated.

Cloisonné, mostly used for the decoration of small jewellery, is perfectly transferred to a large-scale format by Megall, who employs it as if he were using stained glass, constructing geometric, abstract patterns. What also contributes to the sense of stasis is the iteration of certain patterns, as if the process of painting provided both the artist and the spectator with a meditative moment.

The scale of the works offers the observer the possibility to recalibrate her or his perspective and the viewing experience. In Megall’s contribution for the 57th Edition of the Venice Biennial it is possible to overlook the panther all together and to fall into the kaleidoscopic dimension of the background. Hundreds of mirrors are trapped within each single canvas: “I asked him what he meant by a mirror? ‘An instrument,’ answered he, ‘which sets things in relief at a distance from themselves, when properly placed with regard to it’2.”

The size of the canvas allows the spectator to get lost in the painting and to hack the automation of vision. Repetitive reflections mirror the works and invent new patterns, on a scale that ranges from a microscopic dimension to an aerial perspective. What is missing are the possibilities that are usually offered by the sense of touch, as if the painting were created with a translucent effect.

Part of Megall’s production also reflects a kaleidoscopic value by presenting multiple perspectives, as is the case in The Natture of Man and the Two headed panther, both works from 2016 where bodies are actually presented dissected, following various angles contemporarily and then reassembled. Shapes are inclined to each other, almost as in a Futurist painting. These artworks inspire us to think of Eadweard Muybridge, as if Megall tries to reinvent movement once more. Shadows appear and figures suddenly emerge from the acrylic canvas, as if they were able to jump out after being hidden in the background, playing with volume: new geographies are invented.