While reading exciting books, we often imagine the heroes of those stories and may wonder, what they are wearing, or what do these distant places where events take place look like. What a pleasure we have when suddenly we find an illustration depicting our beloved character from the pages of a shabby well-read volume. Perhaps the drawing has been made in an interesting but unexpected manner, and maybe it looks quite different from what we have imagined. These illustrations are created by the imaginative hands of artists, and along with the words of a story, they open the door for us into other worlds where all events are mysterious and magical.
This exhibition presented illustrations and drawings by the French artist and photographer Rodo Toucas. His works are very unique and have their own peculiar style. Toucas started to make drawings from as long as he could remember in early childhood. When he was around 7-8 years old he was illustrating some poems in his primary school. This moment has had become one of his most precious memories.5 years ago, at the beginning of 2013, Rodo Toucas started to take his work more seriously and since then he has steadily created more and more images of his imaginary worlds. In this show we can see Rodo Toucas’ selected illustration works from this time.
For many years, the artist has lived in China, and we can see how the aesthetics of Chinese landscapes and traditional painting have became an inspiration for him and contributed to the formation of his unique style. Almost in every work the viewer is able to find images of mountains and clouds, Chinese temples, a big beautiful moon or trees with bizarre shapes. Also, maybe you can find special messages in his work? The artist is making a pattern of 8 stars on almost every image. Why exactly 8 stars you could ask him yourself? But maybe it's a secret?
In this show we saw his illustrations without texts. These were stories that have not been written yet. But while looking at images, each of us can think up his own fairy tale or adventure. These images led us to the world of pirates, inquisitive mushrooms, brave cats and heroes, who, perhaps, must fight evil powers or search for their own fate.
Rodolphe Toucas is a French illustrator and photographer. His love about illustration and photography started when he was a child. After high school Rodo started to study photography, graphic design and computer design. In the end 90's, he published illustration and grapic novel in some French magzines. Rodo studied his master's degree in media engineering from 2002 to 2004. He had been working in the field of design and media for most of his working career. He came to China in 2011 and lived in China since then.
