Who am I?

Hello everybody! My name is Raphaël, I am 32 years old, and I am native from South-West of France (a small and quiet rural county, the Lot !). Few ago, I decided to change my life, and I founded an original company: a dematerialized art gallery I named ARTOPIAL ! Its name is simple: it mixes ART, UTOPIA and ANIMAL (or BESTIAL, if you think art is closer to a peaceful nature or to a wild one, depends).

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My father of adoption and me at Chuo University.

Why a dematerialized art gallery?

Son and grandson of artists, I decided, one year ago, to pay homage to my father who left too early ten years ago (already!) by funding ARTOPIAL (www.artopial.com). The aim of a dematerialized gallery compared to a physical and real one is double: to give young (and less young) artists from South of France a visibility through the WEB; to avoid constraints linked to the ground and to the physical space (such as land costs, real estate costs, environmental impacts generated by physical trade, stock costs...).

Why, therefore, organizing real exhibitions?

Howether, art is, I think, first an experience which must to be lived!! The virtual, in spite of its numerous advantages and the opportunities it creates, is not enough. To stay rooted in the real, I plan to organize once or twice a year temporal exhibitions of about one or two weeks long. I have already organized one in Tokyo in April, 2016. It was quite an adventure! I plan to make a new one at the end of January, 2017, in Tokyo again, at Ginza neighborhood.

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My first exhibition in Tokyo in april, 2016. I am on the righ side. I look quite serious...

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Japanese people liked a lot the first expo, it was amazing! Look at this elegant Japanese boy at the first expo, doesn't he look smart and classy?

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I met unexpected people! This young lady is half Japanese, half venezulian, and really gentle...!

Why asking for the help and support of KisskissBankers ?

The costs of an exhibition in a very far away coutry are really high: rental of a space, transportation of the paintings, roundtrip air flight tickets, communication, translation from French to Japanese, printing of cards, posters, catalogs... It is more than I can take in charge by myself with my new company. I had therefore the idea, thanks to my cousine, to ask for the help of KissKissBankers and the support of all of you!!

Moreover, the help of KisKissBankers is not only a financial one: discussing with me, criticizing (gently) the project, talking about your own experience, making ARTOPIAL known all around you (Facebook Page => here we are: https://www.facebook.com/artopial/), all those initiatives are really helpful for me to conduct with success this wonderful adventure at the other side of the world!!

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My Japanese friends and me at the center, wearing kimono. Japan is not only busyness, it is firstly a passion and a grat part of my life!!

Finally, what is the purpose of ARTOPIAL?

The exhibition next January is just a step. The final aim is to promote and make know artists from South of France, my native region as well as the one of my father and grandfather! Artists I exhibited last April in Tokyo were from Collioure, in the Oriental Pyrenees! this time, the artist is from Nîmes. He is less young than the others, but he deserves to get his chance too: his name is Jean-Claude DA FANTI. A gallerist and an artist must progress together, and I trust him 100%!! I have faith in his talent!

If the exhibition works, I will have enough resources to do it again with a young artist from Dordogne, and so on. Artists and young gallerists need help, because we are in a world, the one of art, very hard! Therefore, we count on you!!

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The club of the Thirty: we are not in our youthfulness, but we stay dynamic and overall motivated! All of them came to see the previous expo last April, in Tokyo!

This expo, where is it, what is it, who is the artist?

The exhibition will be hold at Soei Gallery, at Ginza, in the city center of Tokyo (the equivalent of the Champs-Elisees in Japan). The place is wonderful, in the core center of the Japanese capital, very closed to all a world of small and discrete but ultra-creative galleries!

The artist I exhibit is Jean-Claude DA FANTI. He told me one day he wanted to realize abstract paintings inspired of MONET's waterlilies. I told him I thaught the idea awesome! I pushed him a lot, I encouraged him, and I advised him a lot, and finally his work is also a little bit mine. It is the way I see and I love the job of gallerist: a priviledge relationship between an artist and a gallerist, dedicated to art and the desire of creating, showing, sharing the conceptions, the tastes, the analysis, the postures...

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One of the paintings especially realized for the exhibition: Ru paisible au crépuscule, 41x33 cm

Why Japan? Why Tokyo?

Japan is my second country. I made there part of my studies. I have my host family and friends living there, as well as memories, desires too... My father loved this country, my mother planned to teach there, and finally it is me who went there, and I do not regret this choice: it is a wonderful country! I am a small French guy who wants to continue to strengthen ties with Japan: it is for that reason I want to exhibit artists from South of France other there. It is, at my measure, at my scale, my small contribution to the dialogue between both culture. If the KissKissBankers can help me in this collective adventure, I will be more than happy: it will mean the dialogue would have already started!!

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Another new painting done for the exhibition next January, 2017: Nymphéas Vives, 55x46 cm

What is the schedule of the next steps?

The exhibition is almost ready. The gallery in Tokyo is reserved. The paintings are done. The catalog is finished, as well as the posters and the postcards. But we need an ultimate boost to print the catalog, to send the paintings to Japan, and to finance the communication. With a 30 day long fundraiser, we will be just on time to open the expo on January 23th, until February 4th, 2017!

Once the event done, I will send to the KissKissBankers who would have supported the project the promised counterparts! Everything will be send before March, 2017, I promise, and even before the beginning of the exhibition concerning the postcards!!

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Another new painting done for the exhibition next January, 2017: Frimas - Nymphéas d'hiver, 55x46 cm

ARTOPIAL expose ses toiles à Tokyo !