INTERVIEW
A residency in Montmartre, at the Cité internationale des arts, how is it?
It is therefore the perfect setting to work, get inspired, follow the news, continue my work, meet people, make appointments in my workshop and present my latest drawings."
A few words to tell us about your next exhibition at the Cité?
"My next exhibition will be held at the Petite Galerie de la Cité internationale des arts. As I write these few lines, it is still in preparation. For this occasion I have the opportunity to work with the independent curator Agnès Violeau. For the moment I can tell you that the exhibition will be entitled: Étant donné la situation nous ne changerons rien.
Among other things, I will present a set of large-format drawings from my long-short series: L'office du dessin.
I have been working on this series since 2016, it can be technically summarized in an aesthetic synthesis constrained by the grid of paper, such as an accounting card. Since a few months I have been using my own paper made especially for the needs of this protocol.
The grid constraint gives me a lot of freedom to develop my ideas. These are in turn, squeaky, frontal, humorous, they tend to question our time and our society."
BIOGRAPHY
More than a shift between low and high culture, it is more a question here of borrowing representations offering the exquisite corpse or games of reversal of interpretation.
An ironic gleaner and observer of society, Olivier Garraud claims the analogical and low tech relationship to the world around him as a sardonic way of looking at it. Gladly squeaky, his productions contribute to the generalized diversion of signs borrowed from reality as well as from a media and contemporary sphere.
While such work is partly nourished by the extensive use of the pencil, he develops prisms and compiles icons through animated sequences, mixed installations or wall hangings.