Hippo, 2023

Olivia Moélo  

A graduate of the School of Fine Arts in Rennes with a monumental installation of woolen threads, Olivia Moélo transforms the architectural space into a sensory and intimate space. A cocoon dripping with pink and pastel threads into which the viewer enters ... It is a work on the intimate of the being, the sexual being, femininity, his right to pleasure. Like Kusama, she creates a universe filled with accumulations, series for sculpture and painting which complete her approach. There is always repetition of the same gesture reproduced ad infinitum. This universe is scented (Samsara by Guerlain for "Pénélope", lavender for "Médousa" to come and a series of anti-stress voodoo dolls for this winter). A closed universe strong and heavy, almost suffocating as it overflows and invades space. This installation gave him a pretext to paint. In the tradition of Pollock and Frize, with a vertically dripping painting at the start. Over the years, this paint becomes heavier and heavier, thick in very acidulous colors mixed reminiscent of the 70s and barley sugars. Work on matter and color for color. The whole resembling threads or textiles. Also inspired by Eva Hesse, Anish Kapoor, Vasconcelos… regularly she explores recycled materials that she accumulates and sews in monumental. One of his next installations will be 4m in diameter and 4m high with an accumulation of "orphans", objects of daily life linked to the body, but also of the intimate (socks, tights) to constitute a cocoon of soft shapes that will turn slowly, languidly on themselves and into which the viewer will enter. Olivia Moélo has always been attracted to sculpture, in awe of several artists such as Brancusi (for the sensual shaping of his works), César, Botero with also a fascination for the career of Louise Bourgeois and the fact that she asks questions sexual and autobiographical at the center of her work… These polished bronzes such as "Arch of Histeria" left her speechless. By chance, she finds herself one fine morning in an aluminum foundry workshop which is preparing works for Philippe Perrin, Orlinski, Jenckell. She receives training in the preparation of molds for the foundry with a little experience in melting. Following her training at JLB, she began to sculpt her first works in resin (Warhol banana in 80cm… Peeled banana…) Like Koons, her work as a sculptor can be considered as the meeting point between several concepts: the ready- mades by Marcel Duchamp, the disproportionate everyday objects of Claes Oldenburg, the appropriation of the more than human object of Arman and the pop art of Andy Warhol but with a work on femininity and seduction and otherness on the other (see Emmanuel Levinas). She had the opportunity at the very beginning of her career to work with marble, which also speaks to her for its smooth and sensual side and which she would one day like to resume. She experiments with different materials according to the periods of her life and her encounters. Emerging artist to follow ...