Cristian Sida :
A FORM OF NARRATIVE DRIPPING
I have the impression that I know everything about him, about his most hidden dreams, about his unconscious gestures. He confesses, thus : « This afternoon I went to my studio led by a deep bitterness, but this very thing made me start a volcanic canvas, different from the others, with huge traits of red, black and two three types of coloured greys. Out of breath, I framed it, like a beginner, I mean by this that I was on the verge of explosion and I didn’t have the time to prepare the canvas well. In half an hour I prepared a great format and started by putting the line of horizon at the bottom of the painting, then, with a larg brush I drew figures two metres tall. Then I took a huge vessel of greys I had prepared before and threw them at random on the surface, without noticing where they fell. On watching, afterwards, I noticed, to my surprise, a new and very vivid and strong expression... I’ll go to the studio tomorrow to see the canvas dry, it will allow me to continue, but today it was the emotion, tomorrow it will be time for the brain to correct the « errors ». "I’ve always said that errors belong to the heart, to passion, to the soul."
I would say in all confidence, relying on Gerhard Richter, one of the model-painters of Cristian Sida that « Painting is a useful tool to manufacture photography by means of painting. » Cristian Sida delivers to us real photographs of mental crashes. It is in this respect that his work around the non-distinct and the birth of shapes gains all its significance. The non-distinct closes tracks, dims the landmarks, as if there were no possible univocal beginning. Native shapes yield another possible reading of the image. I am struck by the mechanisms underlying the complexity of these interlacings of segments pertaining to a historical, cultural, social chain of identification... And all this without the necessity of invoking any allegiance or dependence to either of these fields.
© Alain (Georges) Leduc
Paris, the 8th of April 2009
Novelist (Roger-Vailland Prize 1991), art critic (member of the International Association of Art Critics, IAAC) and professor at the Superior art School in Metz Metropole (ESAMM), he is equally a member of the International Association of Sociologists of the French Language (AISLF).