Cypress Story - Rémy Xavier

Exhibition opening of a French artist working at the intersection of street art and painting.

Rémy XAVIER, also known as Mr LiGht, is a contemporary French artist who grew up in the environment of graffiti and underground art. For some time now, his works have focused with humor and poetry on the interaction between humans and nature. He arrived at this subject after a long stay in many French cities and Brussels, where he collaborated with art galleries and institutions. He now lives in his native village in the south of France, works for a museum, and continues to hold exhibitions in art spaces.
The theme of the exhibition at the Ahoj Nazdar Čau gallery is the mystery of nature and the question of why it continues to fascinate artists in a society where nature is receding into the background of important political discussions.
The “Cypress Story” series was created gradually. Every day I walked past this cypress tree, and something inside me told me to paint it. So I did. After some time, during my exhibition, a man from my village who knows my family and the surrounding area well told me that he recognized this cypress tree and was sure that one of my ancestors had planted it over two hundred years ago. I have the same first name as that ancestor... Life is a cycle, and the world revolves around it.
The other paintings capture views from the place where I live, from my territory, from my surroundings. It is my nature, and it inspires my thinking and my work every day; this is exactly what I missed in big cities.
Depicting nature in display cases shows how humans want to organize and limit it, while on the other hand, nature is disappearing due to human needs. I am building a bridge between nature and graffiti because neither is fully understood as it actually is: as a symbol of freedom and a territory of love. It is an honor for me to organize this exhibition right here at the Ahoj Nazdar Čau gallery and to show people from the Czech Republic that we are connected by the same political questions regarding memory, nature, and humanity. I am also very happy to have met Petra, the gallery's curator and a long-time friend of mine, again.