OLIVIER FURTER.com

Künstlerische Biographie :

 

1962 : Geboren in Locarno TI

1980-1984 : Besucht Kurse an der Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich und an der F+F

1985-1986 : Arbeitet als freier Künstler in London

1989-2013 : Aufenthalt in Paris als Musiker und Tonstudio-Techniker

Seit 2015  :  Wiederaufnahme meiner Tätigkeit als Kunstmaler

2016-2019 : Weiterbildungskurse an der “École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts ” in Paris

2019-2022 : Weiterbildungskurse im Kopieren der alten Meister im Musée du Louvre

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Making other Sense(s) of painting

 

Olivier Furter surrounds himself with images. We discover them stuck on the wall, placed on a table, leaning up against a shelf in a temporary arrangement. Random images, personal photos, bits and pieces of paper. Something – often almost nothing – might trigger his imagination – might lead to a painting. Or perhaps the unexpect may do the trick. If he enlarges an image, other visual surprises may well occur. A collection of indefinite and colourful traces, a treasure trove. A small cat, adopted from an animal rescue shelter, lounges in its chair outside the studio door.

 

There’s more than meets the eye. Indeed, what we see may well be an absence. Eyes usually make the face, yet in Olivier Furter's painting of an enlarged face (1), the nostrils are the focal point. Out of focus, the eyes don’t appear (so to speak). What remains is ‘the absence of’… – inviting us to seek other meanings in the painting.

 

Likewise in many of his painted landscapes, "the cloud is the star" and "a cloud moves so fast," says Oliver. The focus in these paintings shifts to these new stars and their strange splendour captures our attention.

 

Or the obviously stuffed creature the painter shows us in its snow and night setting! Surely, ‘in the absence of…’ reminds us of another creature?

 

And so it is Olivier Furter's paintings strangely transform nature and shift the Senses.

 

Translated from the french by Lesley Brown / original text by Anne Catoire / Paris 2021

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