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Onion Skin

Stand at the precise point of view and Olivier Ratsi’s layered projections recombine time and space into a hypnotic hidden dimension. Contains flashing lights.

Onion Skin is a graphical work about the recomposition of time and space through a game of perspectives, both of the exhibition space itself and that of the projection canvas. The piece plays on the principle of repetition and scale to create a physical and hypnotic experience that opens doors onto the hidden and untouchable.

The experience is based on a very specific point of view, a precise position from which a new dimension is revealed to the audience by anamorphosis. The simple geometric elements (“peelings”) that seemed to be flat at first suddenly start delimiting a new space.

About the artist

Olivier Ratsi has spent two decades making space lie to you. The French artist works in anamorphosis, the centuries-old technique of distorting an image so it only resolves from one exact vantage point.

Thin red lines of light recede into a dark corner in Onion Skin, reflected on the floor.
Two guests in silhouette face a corner where red and white stripes of light meet in Onion Skin.
A guest standing in Onion Skin in orange, nested rectangles of light opening on either side of him.
A band of red light cuts across white striped walls in Onion Skin, meeting at the corner.
Two guests in silhouette against walls washed red and orange in Onion Skin, a small outlined triangle beside them.
White nested frames projected across a dark corner of Onion Skin and across a guest walking through them.
Yellow and red lines of light bend along the walls of Onion Skin and reflect across the dark floor.