Visions in Dust - Raphaël Thierry

Curator: Federico Nicolao. Visions in Dust. Works from the book *Des Etudes et de La Medesima Ombra*. The French Academy in Rome, directed by Richard Peduzzi, invites a young French artist, Raphaël Thierry, and an Italian writer, Federico Nicolao—both currently in residence at the Villa Medici—to collaborate on an exhibition in the Atelier du Bosco. The exhibition *Visions in Dust*: a series of studies and drawings brought together in an evocative setting to introduce the Italian public to the works of the French painter, a few months after his first Italian exhibition, also held at the French Academy, during Rome’s *Notte Bianca* in September 2005. The works on display belong to two distinct projects presented here together: *Le livre des Etudes* and *La Medesima Ombra*. *Le livre des Etudes* brings together charcoal drawings executed on a humble and rather unusual material: circular cardboard coasters. *La Medesima Ombra* comprises charcoal drawings on paper, which formed the basis for a recently published book of the same name that also serves as the catalog for this exhibition. Through the use of simple materials and a limited use of video, Raphaël Thierry invites viewers on a boundless visual journey into the heart of dust, beyond the subject matter at hand: the body and the landscape.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a book: *La Medesima Ombra*, Edizioni I.O. (Optical Illusions), Paris, 32 pages, 24 x 24 format, 9 illustrations, texts in Italian, French, and English, hardcover, 15 euros. The work, conceived as an artist’s book, brings together and highlights the author’s drawings, interspersed with poetic fragments by the writer.