_PNG.png){kind=small}
Daniel Olivier
FRANCE
_p.png)
“Hit by a car, at the age of thirteen, I experienced what is called ‘the tunnel of light’, in a postoperative coma. This event changed my life. Much more than a conviction or a feeling, I have always had the intimate feeling that my life is a painting, that I am made for.”
Daniel OLIVIER, born in 1950 in Calais, France, has been painting and drawing for more than fifty-five years. With figurative, academic training, he is a professional painter. He is a member of the ADAGP, the Taylor Foundation, the Mondial Art Académia, the IAF, the Institute of Figurative Arts, Canada, member of Dan Jacobson's Maxirealists group at Comparisons, Member of the Salond’Automne, and the Circle of European Artists. He lives and paints in AUVERS SUR OISE.
Le | Oil
NA
X 45
The missing link.
Starting with Darwin's portrait of his theory of evolution, the question arises of the missing link in DNA, between primates and humans.
I played with this idea, between chain link, ship anchor chain, human chain, and the biochemical and biological mystery of DNA formation.
Beyond that, I raise the question: now that we know, despite being cousins to primates, what link is humanity missing today?
Not for sale.
He assiduously frequented the Louvre Museum, accessible free of charge, at the time on all Sundays, visiting the departments of ancient sculptures, and the great galleries of paintings, studying, drawing, and copying masterpieces in free inspiration, preparing for art schools. Since his first oil painting in 1967, his approach has been centered on understanding the magic of all the technical possibilities offered by oil, between materials and glazes, structures, and transparencies.
Héritage | Oil
NA
X 45
What future for our youth, for our children...?
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my personal exhibition program until the end of 2024.
For many years, in abstraction, he explored the full potential of painting, by combining the structure of a material composed and included in the painting, with the work of colors applied in successive transparent layers of glaze in pure dimension symbolic. This approach taught him, in his practice of painting, that creative freedom is important, which, quite naturally, announces his return to the figuration.
“I assimilate and incorporate in silence. Right from my tender childhood, all that my gaze has captured, my brain has acted as a storehouse of those emotion-images.”
His current figurative painting, freed from technical constraints, is oriented in a style and writing close to hyper-realism, without that being the goal. It is not in the family of hyper-realists, but he works on a symbolic, surreal, and poetic dimension. Making beautiful paintings, with a love of craftsmanship and well-executed paintings, is his goal. He seeks beauty and meaning in his work, as well as originality in his compositions. The heritage of the great masters of painting is an essential source for him, so his work is made in a classic way, with fine and successive touches of glaze.
Andilly sur mer | Acrylic
NA
19 X 24
Andilly is a small commune in the Val d'Oise, overlooking Paris and offering us a superb panorama. I played with this vision in a poetic way, staging the sea in place of the basin at the foot of the town hall. The sphere suspended in space, often found in my paintings, is for me a symbol of the soul...
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my solo exhibition program until the end of 2024.
Through its enigmatic visual narratives, "Recontour" strives to dismantle preconceptions and challenge conventional interpretations of reality. Each photograph extends an invitation to venture beyond the confines of familiarity, embarking on an exploration of the intricate nuances of human perception and the subjective nature of existence itself. Like an intricate dance between light, motion, and imagination, the series ignites contemplation and evokes
La Bille | Acrylic
NA
32 X 21
One can see here and there, stains, explorations, and more accomplished works through which he expresses his love of life, of light, in techniques pushed to the extreme, through the game of repeated glazes, transparency, and material, until finding just the color and depth. After a long journey made of sensory research above all, far from concepts, his painting today is resolutely figurative, a true return to the essence of his life from the painter. This work requires all the attention, it is a concentrated meditation, and the hand extended towards the canvas emerges from time, in a silent search for the point of contact between the image and the tip of the brush. The purpose is not the representation, but the act of painting.
“As I write...what I can't say with words I paint...Why?...Words fix. By using words, time runs... from one being to another. Life does not fix anything. Everything changes, moves, and evolves. To paint is to make time move, and, paradoxically it is also suspending it.”
My paintings are a deep reflection of my feelings about the world and my themes flow from it. My vision of the world is restored on the canvas like a meditation in the long execution of each painting because there is also a search for emotion. This emotion is an intimate place of meeting with the public, and sharing.
However, pacing the cycle of the seasons suspends time. It is the cycle and the beauty of nature, of the roots to the leaf, or the flower: to step into the light, and to suspend time. And I try to suspend time. It is through my painting that I find the answer. The act of creation is a mystery made of silence. Similarly, the gaze exchanged with the other is also a mystery. Between the canvas and me, the space is intimate. Words can't express that alone; that moment. To enter into the silence of the painting, you need to listen, pay attention, wonder, and have great compassion, and only then does the touch count.
L'impasse | Acrylic
NA
19 X 24
A stone's throw from my studio in Auvers sur Oise, the last home of Vincent Van Gogh, a small cul-de-sac, a cosmic setting between the planet Mars, on the right, and Europa, satellite of Jupiter, on the left, and a philosophical thought ... at the end of the cul-de-sac: there is always light...
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my solo exhibition program until the end of 2024.
For many years, in abstraction, Daniel explored the full potential of painting, by combining the structure of a material composed and included in the painting, with the work of colors applied in successive transparent layers of glaze in pure dimension symbolic. This approach taught him, in his practice of painting, that creative freedom is important, which, quite naturally, announces his return to the figuration.
Le miel du Vexin | Acrylic
NA
39 X 39
The lives of precious bees in danger, and a little poem as a tribute to this delicious nectar that I consume every morning. The Vexin is a beautiful little hilly region just above Auvers sur Oise.
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my personal exhibition program until the end of 2024.
His first personal exhibition was in May 1970. His approach is centered on figuration with work on transparency and glazing, service of the symbolic, poetic, and contemporary imagination. He enjoys working in public encounters. After his exploration of acrylic painting, he returned to oil painting, which he discovered in 1967, in the spirit of Grand Masters who deeply marked his choices techniques, and compositions. Leonardo Da Vinci, Salvador Dali, and even Jean Olivier Hucleux are absolute role models for him.
The idea is simple and straightforward: if you throw dice to decide the fate of the world, it will end up on the sand...
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my solo exhibition program until the end of 2024.
Le sort du monde | Acrylic
NA
39 X 39
“In my last fourteen years, I was a craftsman, on my own, caught in the gears of just-in-time flow permanently, working day and night, and eventually a serious burn-out came to conclude this journey.”
L'iris | Acrylic
NA
39 X 39
The iris, flower of Van Gogh, and flower of Auvers sur Oise, flowers as beautiful as they are fragile.
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my solo exhibition program until the end of 2024.
Since then, he has participated in numerous art fairs in France and abroad. To name only the most recent: ArtShopping, Carrousel from the Louvre, Paris, 2015; Rotterdam ArtFair, Barcelona ArtFair, 2016; SIAC, Marseilles, 2016/2017/2018; 4Art, Lille, 2018; Salon d'Automne, Paris, 2020/2021/2022; Artists' Fair French, Paris, 2022; June 2022, with the IAF, “Signatures” group exhibition, in Canada; Art Capital, Grand Palais, Paris, Comparisons Nouvelles, in Dan’s “MaxiRéalistes” group Jacobson, since 2020. August 2023, in Crete, in the El Greco Museum, the painter's birthplace.
Four weeks, 10 hours a day, to try and render the timeless beauty and magnificent structure of this sea mollusk, a little hymn to the beauty of life, like a little poem.
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my personal exhibition program until the end of 2024.
L'escargot de mer | Oil
NA
32 X 25
His only successes, and prizes received during his schooling, were prizes in drawing, painting, modeling, and, dental prostheses: those of morphology and sculpture. In the laboratory of the dental prosthesis school, during a sculpture-morphology session, the teacher, taking Daniel’s work from his hands called out to his fellow students and said ‘Here! Look! That's a tooth, and this is what I ask you to do to me.’ Yes, that’s how Daniel knew how to do it.
Federico Garcia Lorca |Oil
NA
32 X 25
Two creative impulses for this painting, a tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca. First, this well-known photo, taken when he was young.
It seemed to me that I could read in his deep gaze the announcement of his tragic end, and his execution, many years later. And then this poem: "La solea", a poem about the solitude of being, and about hope....
This painting is not for sale, it is reserved for my solo exhibition program until the end of 2024.
“My answer to those who doubt themselves today: believe in yourself, do what you like to do, and don't let go!!!”
Not a solo artist yet? Subscribe to our solo exhibitions at TERAVARNA and share your art with the world!
