Page 11 - TOP 10 CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS - Volume VI

to our eyes. Rimele says about his own diptychs that they are the practice, experiments with colored shadows were rarer. It was not
“edge of the encounter between the full and the empty, the past until Impressionism that painters, with the help of the new findings
and the future, which point to the present as the consequence of in physics and particularly in optics, understood and depicted
both.” That is why they resemble Gothic sculptures of the Shrine scenes in which the shadow takes over the color of the foundation
Madonna. Mariology refers to Jesus’s mother as the “Vierge as it merges with the shadow of the object casting the shadow.
ouvrante”, and when her wooden “coat” was solemnly opened,
her lap, in which God’s son was incarnated, glittered in the Rimele went even further; in his installations, he studied the laws of
blinding splendour of the highest grace. This grace is timeless or color reflections and shadows with care and thus created magical
above time: the living believers experience the subgratia present new worlds in which materiality intertwines with their colored
through meditation on Christ’s past suffering, which announced shadowed dematerialization. “The emergence of an image is
the forthcoming redemption. revealed (only) by its shadow. Chromatically intensive color forms
on the wall appear as the ground shadow of the object, which
Rimele’s challenge of opening the wall and dematerialising it is again reflects onto the shadow its chromatic charge, for the ’backs’ of
emphasised by the coloured shadow. He needs to carefully plan the objects are evaluated with intensive color. The edges turned
each installation and test the intensity of the colour and its tone inwards, towards the wall, and covered with intensive color are
values, for “coloured shadows which become carriers of colour thus projection surfaces which reflect into their surroundings.
trigger vibration of the space in the observer’s eyes, and with the The observer sees their projection of color upon the surface of
observer’s movement they are constantly changing, which is why the wall and sees them directly only from the side. If light is the
perception is dynamic. The colour of the reflected shadow gradually origin of the image and shadow its consequence, in the case of
disappears, which forces the gaze to fall on the source. Thus it Illuminations (the title of the exhibition in Kostanjevica in 2004) it is
puts the perception effort before lightness (characteristic for the the (colored) shadow which is the carrier of the central meaning:
shadow) and goes through a dramatic experience of something that is why it is urgent that these ’shadows’ come into existence,
which does not exist.” According to Aristotle’s principle of mimesis, for the phenomenon of the image of the whole is inseparably
nature itself teaches us about the intensity and colourfulness of connected with the very reflection of the color onto the shaded
shadows. Many animals, such as mammals, reptiles, birds and parts on the wall.”
fishes have a darker dorsal or upper part of the body and brighter
lower or abdominal part of the body. This is to counter the shadow Here we can only conclude that Rimele’s painted objects become
cast by light coming from above and to blend in with this light when catchers of the observer’s gaze, which the author has not tricked
viewed from below, so that they are less visible to predators. Some with the illusion of the trompe-l’oeil or the perspectivistic spatial
predators also take advantage of this form of camouflage. repoussoirs but only through artistic, light and color elements. He
laid an original trap for the perception process by redefining the
In several parts of his treatise, Leonardo deals with the colour of image, eliminating all factors which do not belong to the fine arts
reflections and shadows in a very exact but also complicated way. and thus refining the auto-referential image-creating elements.
In the chapter Of the colour of shadows of any colour (188) he says: These function as an atavistic or totemistic spell that overwhelms,
“The colour of the shadow of any colour always partly takes over enchants and fascinates the observer. With the help of concrete
the colour of its object; whether it takes over more or less colour painted objects, Rimele has created the impression of light, tamed
depends on the distance between the object and the shadow its glow and captured all its physical and spiritual dimensions.
and on the brightness of the object.” In the chapter Of Colours of The illumination of the material object or a concrete place by
shadows (246) he says: “It often happens that the shadows of a light has always been the best instrument for meditation,
shaded body do not retain colours or light; sometimes they are contemplation, and immersion into one’s own spirituality,
greenish, while the lights are reddish, although the body is of the which can only lead to enlightenment in this way. Today, in
same colour. /…/. I often saw a white object with red lights and the time of different methods of wasting of light, intimate
the shades of a bluish cast.” In the chapter On shadows of distant places such as those created by Rimele are rare and thus
objects and their colour (617) he says: “The shadows of distant all the more precious. That is why we fully believe him
objects become bluer, the darker and the remoter they are. This when he says that light is the allegory of the revelation
happens due to the effect of the light of the air which is mixed with of the idea, and is therefore necessary for the revelation
the darkness of the bodies between the sun and the eye. If the of the image. On its surface we see only a small part of
eye turns away from the sun, such blueness will not be visible.” In reality, but with the reduction of the surface of the world
the chapter On which part of the surface of a body with a shadow perceived by senses we enter into communication with
colors of bodies are mixed (620) he says: “On the part of the surface the internal and the hidden.
of the body which is reached by the reflections of the colors of
different objects, these reflections will mix.” Leonardo writes about the Moon that “it is not particularly
bright in the sky during the day, but during the night it shines
Questions such as what happens to the object’s color in the shadow so strongly that it chases away darkness and seems like //TOP 10 CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
and why shadows sometimes seem colored were of great interest the Sun during the day”. That is why for a long time many
to empiricists in the age of the Rococo and the Enlightenment. believed it to be more important than the Sun: the Sun
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon, said about that: “In the shines during the day, when it is bright anyway, yet the
summer 1743, I observed more than thirty occurrences of dawn Moon illuminates the night when it is dark. If shadow is
and the same number of sunsets, the rays of which fell upon white the proof of the material existence of an object, the Moon,
surfaces such as white walls; sometimes they were green, but illuminated by the Sun’s light, is the night evidence of the
most of the time they were as blue as the most beautiful azure. existence of the Sun. Even when the Sun is invisible during
I showed this phenomenon to some people who were equally the night, the Moon comforts us with its shine, which in fact
surprised as I.” Diderot tried to explain this phenomenon in 1766: is the Sun’s reflection. And such is the case with Rimele’s
“Also shadows have their colors. Look carefully at the edges and at installations; they show us that shadows and reflections
the whole mass of a white object and you will discover an infinite are sometimes more important than light itself.
number of intermediary black and white dots. The shadow of a red
object is slightly reddish; it seems as if the light which falls upon Oto Rimele, Spirituality of Material Absence
purple crumbles off some part of it and takes it away.” In artistic by Prof. Dr. Jure Mikuž, art critic graduate in art history and history
from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia