THE TOWER XVI
TYPE : triptych
MEDIULS : oil painting and oil pastels on raw linen without wood frame
DATE : 2023
PLACE : FR
![]()
SYNOPSIS :
In the context of the climate crisis, we need to (re-)create a renewed relation to the living, we need to transform. The artwork TOWER XVI explores the concept of transition : it is the moment of upheaval toward the power of regeneration, essential and indispensable. For this work, Camille Dedenise worked directly with the La Tour tarot card, the major arcana, number XVI. The card is both a symbolic support and an archetype of the intimate and the collective, a metaphor and a force of influence. Camille Dedenise is part of a long tradition of artists who draw inspiration from the tarot and work with it. In this work, transition is seen as a presence, a moment that is a space, a territory: change, the moment of passage from one state to another, is a zone in flux. An inevitable uprising. The tarot card LA TOUR, also known as "La Maison Dieu" in the Tarot de Marseille, is number XVI. The LA TOUR tarot card represents a tower at the top of a mountain, struck by lightning. The Tower collapses, ravaged by flames. The card represents a sudden change, destruction and chaos, and what happens in the explosion, in the collapse.
The work depicts this: the collapse of a human structure, of a system that is not working, out of breath, suffocating in the rhythm of the exploitation of the earth and ecological disaster. The tower, which symbolises society and the ego, is being destroyed in a chaos animated by flames. The flames represent destruction. It is a necessary, inevitable end that stops the abuse. In this moment of destruction, there is an awakening, in the end of an ideal, another reality becomes possible through the liberation of the individual and collective ego. This new reality makes it possible to rebuild horizons, to engage with new concepts, new ways of, new perspectives, new seeds: a regeneration. Fire also represents change, rebirth, like the phoenix rising from its ashes. This work represents a revolution, a passage from one state to another, an essential and inevitable transition.
The triptych includes three oil paintings and oil pastels on raw linen without wood frame. Each painting is 1 metre wide and 1.5 metres long (height). The central painting represents the tower collapsing in the fire. At its centre, in the vertical, we can identify a white slit (made with oil pastel, canvas without holes). In the chaos of the burning tower, the white crack represents the space of possibilities in the moment of transition. It is the space of a possible, even necessary, regeneration in the brutality of a breathless system that is collapsing in on itself, on its ruins. To the right and left are the two canvases representing the spaces of regeneration in the moment of chaos, which emerge from the white crack: animals, spirits and human forms are the central figures of this space. It is a presence that emanates, that drifts. A presence that emerges from the human monologue and its ego, a presence that thinks of the companionship of species, the end of accumulation, the end of exploitation, the experience of ecological finitude: regeneration. The green vegetations are the common space of these presences, somewhere between abstract and figurative, they are moving, verdant, alive, as if blown in the wind.
MEDIULS : oil painting and oil pastels on raw linen without wood frame
DATE : 2023
PLACE : FR
« The tower, which symbolises society and the ego, is being destroyed in a chaos animated by flames. The flames represent destruction. It is a necessary, inevitable end that stops the abuse. In this moment of destruction, there is an awakening, in the end of an ideal, another reality becomes possible. »
SYNOPSIS :
In the context of the climate crisis, we need to (re-)create a renewed relation to the living, we need to transform. The artwork TOWER XVI explores the concept of transition : it is the moment of upheaval toward the power of regeneration, essential and indispensable. For this work, Camille Dedenise worked directly with the La Tour tarot card, the major arcana, number XVI. The card is both a symbolic support and an archetype of the intimate and the collective, a metaphor and a force of influence. Camille Dedenise is part of a long tradition of artists who draw inspiration from the tarot and work with it. In this work, transition is seen as a presence, a moment that is a space, a territory: change, the moment of passage from one state to another, is a zone in flux. An inevitable uprising. The tarot card LA TOUR, also known as "La Maison Dieu" in the Tarot de Marseille, is number XVI. The LA TOUR tarot card represents a tower at the top of a mountain, struck by lightning. The Tower collapses, ravaged by flames. The card represents a sudden change, destruction and chaos, and what happens in the explosion, in the collapse.
The work depicts this: the collapse of a human structure, of a system that is not working, out of breath, suffocating in the rhythm of the exploitation of the earth and ecological disaster. The tower, which symbolises society and the ego, is being destroyed in a chaos animated by flames. The flames represent destruction. It is a necessary, inevitable end that stops the abuse. In this moment of destruction, there is an awakening, in the end of an ideal, another reality becomes possible through the liberation of the individual and collective ego. This new reality makes it possible to rebuild horizons, to engage with new concepts, new ways of, new perspectives, new seeds: a regeneration. Fire also represents change, rebirth, like the phoenix rising from its ashes. This work represents a revolution, a passage from one state to another, an essential and inevitable transition.
The triptych includes three oil paintings and oil pastels on raw linen without wood frame. Each painting is 1 metre wide and 1.5 metres long (height). The central painting represents the tower collapsing in the fire. At its centre, in the vertical, we can identify a white slit (made with oil pastel, canvas without holes). In the chaos of the burning tower, the white crack represents the space of possibilities in the moment of transition. It is the space of a possible, even necessary, regeneration in the brutality of a breathless system that is collapsing in on itself, on its ruins. To the right and left are the two canvases representing the spaces of regeneration in the moment of chaos, which emerge from the white crack: animals, spirits and human forms are the central figures of this space. It is a presence that emanates, that drifts. A presence that emerges from the human monologue and its ego, a presence that thinks of the companionship of species, the end of accumulation, the end of exploitation, the experience of ecological finitude: regeneration. The green vegetations are the common space of these presences, somewhere between abstract and figurative, they are moving, verdant, alive, as if blown in the wind.
AT THE STUDIO :
DETAILS :
