The Italian-German artist Flavio Apel, resident in Marburg, Germany, has devoted himself since childhood to the search of perfection, achieving unusual levels of realistic accuracy.
In his art-work the artist uses realistic drawing, obtained with many hours of work using only graphite pencils on white paper, to create alternative worlds that contain moreover a deeper spiritual truth, reached after a laborious journey that takes him back in time.
It doesn’t matter whether in the series ”Circe” it is the enchantress herself, that is the unattainable figure of the artist’s personal Odyssey who appears to us, or if it is the search for the lost childhood world, represented by the improbable encounter/confrontation of insects with everyday objects - in particular kitchen items - which seem to be livelier and more animated than the dream-frozen animals.
The protagonists of Apel’s figurative world – unlike the masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools where sumptuous richly draped tables are laden with succulent fruits, glittering cutlery and shiny glasses - are semi-full soup bowls, bent forks and knives, empty cans on a white background. Insects are mutilated, often dying, to symbolize the vanity of human efforts. Apel’s drawings tell stories that, apart from his own, can be interpreted and broken down by observers into thousand of hyperreal worlds.
The artist also often places the protagonists of his world of images on the periphery of the art-work. The void in the centre transports the observer toward the edges of the sheet, toward details, that at first glance seem abstract and without real meaning. The chiaroscuro of these signs guide us in the search for the image, which after a more careful observation reveal to us food remnants or insects spread on butter and as their ”Final del juego” - end of game - the journey to Hades, a sink discharge.
In 2017 the title of an exhibition by Flavio Apel is ”Andacht zum Unbedeutenden” ( Devotion to insignificant). Like the Brothers Grimm, to whom this derogatory observation was addressed, Flavio Apel leads us with his works in search of ”insignificant things”, far from the sensational and sumptuous ones.