THÉO LOPEZ – Ritz-Carlton Rabat – OCTOBER 9, 2026 > JANUARY 9, 2027
David Bloch Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition by French artist Théo Lopez at The Ritz-Carlton Rabat, Dar Es Salam, with the support of the Consulate General of France in Rabat.
Represented by the gallery since 2022, Théo Lopez will unveil a selection of works on canvas and paper, alongside a series of sculptures created in collaboration with Moroccan metal craftsmen, bringing together the artist’s contemporary practice and the country’s rich tradition of craftsmanship.
Théo Lopez has placed introspection and interiority at the heart of his research. Our era, shaken by radical uncertainty, dominated by an increasingly greedy death pulsion, forces us into isolation and individualism. Here, the artist takes on the challenge to give back to Art its emancipating role towards Beauty. Throughout his latest works, Théo Lopez invites us to take another path, one that rejects nihilism and chaos and chooses to imitate reflections leading to metamorphosis and (re)construction.
In Chinese cosmology, the vital breath, both matter and spirit, is what unites all human beings with the world. This demiurgic oneness is what animates the artist as a creator. In Théo Lopez’s paintings, we encounter the polarization of this creative energy stretched between the impetuosity of the gesture and the mastery of lines resulting from a construction of the composition according to their application with tape or masking. In doing so, the artist seeks to rebalance this lost harmony by reconciling opposites: being and being, empty and full, outside and inside… according to the Way (The Way of the Tao).
Théo Lopez experienced this transition, according to the Nietzschean theory, from the Apollonian world of ideas to the Dionysian world of ecstasy and the sublime in front of the Wailing Wall. In his artistic approach, the symbolism of the wall appears to him as a crossing point, a threshold to be crossed, towards transcendence. In Barcelona, where the artist lives, the Sagrada Familia, another sacred architectural structure that has long remained unfinished, brings a similar emotion of transcendence and elevation that once the Dionysian creator strives for. Entering what Chagall called “psychic space” requires abandoning certainties and trusting contingency and even the unconscious, in the creative act. The artist thus emancipates himself from a world that has lost all bearings, a world that is exploding with hubris and human insanity, in order to refocus on his inner world and the freedom it provides.
Théo Lopez is transforming his visual language, requiring destruction in order to rebuild, using color and matter to achieve it. In his work, the artist acknowledges the influence of Russian Constructivism, particularly Larionov, and German Expressionism with Die Blaue Reiter (1911-1914), a group formed around Vasily Kandinsky, August Macke, and Franz Marc, who claimed the importance of the artist’s interiority in the creation of his work. This interiority, specific to the creator, like his uniqueness, gives birth to Beauty, the first step towards the soul’s elevation towards the absolute.
In the artist’s painted and engraved compositions, several dynamics induced by gesture and color-matter are revealed. Théo Lopez brilliantly captures movement in action through the radiance of the matter and the intermingled lines of force that invade his creations, giving them their own rhythm and momentum. The viewer himself experiences a metaphysical work of art by feeling deep inside the sensitivity and emotion provoked by the blend of color (light), shapes (matters), and the resulting musicality.
The intertwining of lines and curves creates a new inner space in which the material, also worked with illusionist intent, finds its place. Generated by the pigments’ colours and the varying shades of the shadow effects, the material is also mastered by the artist, who plays with emptiness and fullness according to the intensity with which the gesture is applied to the medium. This dichotomy (empty/full, inhalation/exhalation, inside/outside…) is only superficial, as the Cosmos sequence requires a balance of the opposites. This inner space is what the artist reveals to us. Théo Lopez invites us to take a renewed look at the world around us, at our relationships to others and to things. By naming his recent body of work with titles related to the universe, he encourages us to dive into the sensory and psychic world. It’s up to us to venture there.
Clotilde Scordia, Art historian