ORSON WELLES

Orson Welles
2022
Oil on canvas
110 x 155 cm

Orson Welles is the fruit of seven years of artistic labour. Blase's desire to depict crop circles, these enigmatic patterns, has been with him for a long time. However, the search for the ideal landscape, with its perfect dimensions and the right inclination, was a real journey.
In 2022, Blase turns this imposing eighteenth-century work (110 cm x 155 cm) on its head. It is also one of the artist's rare hijackings of a landscape. In Orson Welles, this landscape unfolds, framed by a lush forest, while a sky tinged with rosy hues heralds the twilight of a summer's day. Two shepherds, one on horseback and the other on foot, guide their flock of sheep towards the enclosure. As we follow in the wake of these woolly companions, our gaze is inevitably drawn to the field, the real focal point of this pastoral scene. The intrigue arises at first sight, as crop circles, complex geometric shapes that seem to emerge mysteriously from nowhere, suggesting an extraterrestrial passage to our planet, appear within the depicted field. Although most of these appearances turn out to be hoaxes, many people still believe in the conspiracy theories surrounding these phenomena. Blase accompanies this painting with a mockumentary, weaving a story around the fascinating discovery of a mysterious painting by a Parisian art dealer. In this mockumentary, traces of a hypothetical extraterrestrial intervention are skilfully interwoven with the plot of the artistic diversion.