Joram Roukes

Colourful anthropomorphic figures, animals and passion for details: this is “Oils“, Joram Roukes‘ solo show at Signal Gallery, London.

Touchdown, an artwork by Joram Roukes

Last night I had a very nice evening at Signal Gallery for the preview of “Oils“: great artworks, a giveaway and a final speech by Joram Roukes himself.

I’ve been lucky enough of being at the gallery a couple of hours before the opening, so I could really enjoy Joram’s artworks with no rush and no people around, a real luxury!

As inside the gallery the first thing I’ve noticed has been the size of the artworks, really huge: just 5-6 paintings were covering the whole exposition surface of the main room. In the secondary rooms, from the other side, there were many smaller pieces.

The main subject of all the biggest canvases was an anthropomorphic figure surrounded by many other smaller elements like animals, cars, ice-creams and more, as in Roukes’ usual style. The smaller pieces instead were almost all portraits, of course in the same style and with the same colour palette of the other paintings.

If from one side I liked the huge paintings because of their vibrant colours and because in some of them the figure depicted looked like “coming outside the canvas”, from the other side I really appreciated the smaller artworks because of the subject portrayed.

Joram says that he leaves judgement and interpretation of his artworks to the viewer: I honestly couldn’t find any personal interpretation of his art, but I’ve liked so much loosing myself in his huge paintings, discovering new details and shades and leaving my eyes enjoying the warm colours.

The evening ended with a speech by Joram Roukes himself: the artist talked about his paintings and answered to few questions. This has been a great moment, it doesn’t happen everyday having the opportunity of listening an artist talking about his art and sharing his ideas and vision. I was missing a moment like this, and I really hope other artists and galleries will follow Joram’s example.

The preview has been really nice and Joram Roukes’ artworks really deserve to be seen: if you are around London I suggest to go to Signal Gallery and have a look yourself. If you are not here my pictures of the exhibition.