A synesthete, he transposes the grape varieties into colorful paintings…

L'exposition permanente est visible à Lodève. JM – JM

Armando de Lima a édité un recueil de ses œuvres. JM – JM

Armando de Lima perceives flavors and fragrances in colors. He exhibits the fruit of this perceptive assemblage at the wine bar, La Fontaine, in Lodève. The artist, now from Sétois, also created the trophies for the first Clermontais wine list. Explanations…

Originally from Burgundy, now from Sétois, Armando de Lima discovered his particularity late in life, somewhat by chance, while chatting with a journalist… He is gifted with “synesthesia& rdquo; since childhood. "I see life in pink, in any case, in colors", laughs the artist who exhibits his works at the wine bar, La Fontaine, in Lodève. Taste, smell, touch…"all my senses are represented in the form of colors", he explains. And like many synesthetes, he was simply unaware of having any perceptual coquetry. Like Proust, Miles Davis, Beethoven or certain chefs, he is part of this large, and little-known, family, often artistic, which represents 4% of the population. "It’s a natural thing, we live with it, it’s not a handicap, on the contrary. we are ultra sensitive to certain things.

A surprising transposition asset

For example,"I realized, through my tastings, that my taste memory was extremely strong because I put colors on it.&quot ;Grenache, Mourvèdre or other Cabernet Franc… under the palate of this winemaker's son the grape varieties are translated into colorful nuances which he then transposes into paintings where, paradoxically,   quot;the abstract makes the invisible visible. Like a return to his roots for this man who, as a child, dreamed of studying Fine Arts, before doing without for many years, in Paris, immersed in commercial development and marketing, in particular, of the wine merchant chain “Le laire de Bacchus”. Later, he put his creative talents to work for a printer and created a label that would soon be transformed into a painting… 

See with the heart…

Thus was born a fertile path which is expressed today, on the walls of Lodévois, and on Japanese paper, but not only. Because, in the same vein, Armando de Lima also imagined the illustrations for the trophies of the Palmarès des Vins du CLermontais,   (scheduled for April 2), and edited "Fragrances and grape varieties", a collection of works exhibited in Lodève through which he shares his "another vision of wine", he slips mischievously. Because the fifty-year-old, who suffers from an eye condition, which has worsened in recent years, does not lack humor. The rare orphan genetic disease which affects him, “Best's disease”,  only strikes “the best”, laughs the one who claims to see with his heart… We only see well with the heart it seems. Armando's works underline Saint-Exupéry's maxim in color.

Permanent exhibition: at the wine bar, La Fontaine, 21 boulevard de la Liberté, in Lodève.  06 73 90 16 41. I subscribe to read more