Exhibition with Olivier Desvaux, long-distance pictorial journeys in Cap d'Ail

A range of ultramarine, indigo, sky blue, or turquoise, mixed with pure whites and warm tones, browns, or ochres... Like so many maritime landscapes in contrasting colors, bathed in changing light. Those that gave their name to this exhibition. From the Urals to Greece, from the banks of the Seine to Japan, from the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon to Syracuse, from San Francisco to the Norwegian fjords, Olivier Desvaux, born on May 12, 1982 in Rouen and a 2006 graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, invites you on a journey. And to many stops, through the prism of his landscapes of great diversity, from which emanates a timeless poetry. Translated in these terms by the artist, reached by telephone: "Capturing reality, feeling, finding the inspiring light, the poetry of a place. For me, it is an experience with the living, the elements, which is always at the origin of work in the studio."

The South, his first playground

A reality that paradoxically takes on a dreamlike aspect, as Olivier Desvaux manages to capture the soul of a place, playing on reflections and transparencies. His first artistic playground? Saint-Tropez, where his family owned a house, and he came from childhood: "I started painting the Var and Côte d'Azur coastline at a very young age, the warm colors of the hinterland, so different from my native Normandy. A vacation that was exotic, sunny, and very inspiring." The Mediterranean has never ceased to inspire him since: "When I sit down facing a landscape to paint it, the history of the country, of a civilization, brings an extra soul. And I always need that horizon line. Hence my attraction to port cities like Tangier, San Francisco, Le Havre, or Nice."

In situ inspiration

Distinguished by numerous awards, Olivier Desvaux is part of the tradition of oil painting. In 2018, this explorer at heart, eager to exchange with other artists, joined, to his great joy, the restricted circle of Official Painters of the French Navy. While still working in his studio, located on a bend of the Seine, in Normandy. From this daily spectacle but also in return for his countless peregrinations, notably aboard the legendary boat "l'Astrolabe", Olivier Desvaux most often draws his inspiration from the outdoors. In situ. With a particular attraction to the wave, whether fluvial, marine, or the mirror of Lake Baikal. "I always travel with a small amount of painting equipment, so that I can take out my easel and do a small study in 20 to 40 minutes maximum," he confides . "What interests me is capturing this feeling on site, the subtlety of the colored tones of the light, and this work will allow me to then reproduce these elements in the studio, having taken a step back. To recompose, with the help of photographs, giving more strength and character to these compositions, to finally arrive at a larger format."

Mise en abyme

His compositions are frequently structured by architectural edges but also by a staging of emptiness that punctuates the works. The characters, for their part, constitute a form of mise en abyme, since they symbolize the painter contemplating the landscape, while implicitly inviting us to do the same. By taking his time and "letting himself be crossed by the landscape" , to follow the painter's recommendation. For whom seemingly banal things can suddenly become marvelous under the effect of light. In the display cases that we discover at the end of the visit, finally, are presented studies that are at the origin of large-format works created in the studio. Interior scenes, portraits of loved ones, details of landscapes or everyday scenes captured in travel notebooks, reveal here another part of his work, scrutinizing, intimate, often tender, always captivating.

Around the exhibition

A summer workshop will be offered on August 31 from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Around painting, collage and textures, children will create their own landscape after visiting the works, supervised by a drawing teacher. (from 6 years old) Price: 10 euros. Registration required: [email protected] Guided tours for adults: August 19 and 26, September 2 and 9, from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. By reservation. Summer activity for children from 7 years old: children are invited to explore the painter's works with the help of seven postcards sent by the artist. Free.

17 avenue Raymond Gramaglia in Cap d'Ail. Open Sunday from 11am to 6pm, Doors close at 5:30pm. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 9:30am to 12:30pm and 2pm to 6pm Doors close at 12pm and 5:30pm. Prices: 5 to 9 euros. Information: Tel.: 04.93.98.36.57. www.villalescamelias.com/fr/