Touils: Between Landscape and Memory

Some places are first imagined. Others become clear only after they have been crossed and left behind. In 'Between Landscape and Memory', Touils turns to environments that stay with him after experience has passed: valleys, villages, coastlines, rivers and roads reshaped by colour and distance. What is seen is never preserved as it was. It changes as it is remembered.

After series inspired by Japan and the Arab world, a stay in Africa brought new scenery, tones and impressions into Touils’ work. His process starts with an emotional connection to a setting or memory; from there, instinct takes over, pulling the image away from literal representation.

In 'The Path to the Hills', a luminous yellow road winds towards the hills. 'The River' sets brilliant blue water against orange-red earth, while 'Camps Bay, Cape Town' turns the coastline into an intensely green world beneath a restless, swirling sky. Paths disappear. Rivers thread through the land. Horizons recede. These lines of passage draw the eye towards somewhere beyond the immediate scene.

Colour closes that distance. Greens, turquoise, reds, oranges and purples heighten what recollection has softened, allowing atmosphere to overtake faithful description. Working in oil, acrylic and oil pastel, Touils layers energetic marks with his characteristic vertical white lines until forms sharpen, dissolve and return. The source remains visible, but fidelity gives way to feeling.

What survives once somewhere has been departed is rarely the whole of it. A road persists. A colour intensifies. A horizon moves further away. Touils works from these fragments, stripping away the incidental until atmosphere carries greater weight than accuracy. The landscape recedes; its impression burns brighter.