(Oli-B © Heleen Rodiers)
If you feel an irresistible urge for some funky hip-shaking at the sight of the cover of AGENDA's July issue, away you go. Oli-B’s shapes and colours dance and sing with the laidback flow of a fish that feels at home in the urban waters. We went surfing on the waves this all-rounder is currently making at “Wundercity” Brussels.
“My art is my therapy. It is a world I plunge into. That activity, those colours and forms give me infinite amounts of energy. If I do nothing, I go crazy. I’m keeping fine, by the way. [laughs] But I have to be active; I’ve got to create.” Oli-B (born in 1984) speaks enthusiastically, passionately, to the rhythm of the city. Born in Brussels, he feels like a fish in the water here. His posters and walls on the streets and his album sleeves, prints, drawings, magazine covers, and paintings are the conductors for his energy and dreams. He talks enthusiastically about the logical next step: 3-D. “Yeah! That’s what I want! But it can’t just remain a fanciful dream. I don’t want to get frustrated. I’m really a pretty impatient person. I’m willing to put in the months needed to bring something to a successful conclusion, alright, but it can’t take years.” The dream of three dimensions is inspired, above all, by the sculptures of Niki de Saint Phalle, a French artist who died ten years ago in California. Oli-B goes into raptures about her healthy – well, spherical – ladies. “Those fat ladies, tout brillant. They are almost sweets: gorgeous, colourful toffees. That really appeals to me. The 3-D will make things even more alive and more energetic, I reckon. I can already see in my mind’s eye how my objects are going to look… I have it all inside my head: I’m starting to have visions and I'm really keen to make them concrete over the next few months.”
Flirting with art
Oli-B knows what he wants, and he wants a lot. His work ranges across a huge array of media, but always shows the hallmarks of an artist. “That is a word that certainly has its uses. I wear many different hats and that can be confusing for lots of people, but above all I remain someone who creates things, an artist. People do lots of different things, after all. Look at Stanley Kubrick: his name is identified with magnificent cinema, but the director turns out to have been a photographer too. I like it when you’re not pinned down to a single identity. I’m a bit of an all-rounder. I move very easily from one thing to another. The boundaries between painting and design, for example, are not clearly delineated either. And there are so many things I would like to do, that interest me.” Everything is part of the same flow. “Everything is connected. There are pots with skills I can help myself from. Sometimes you mix the contents of those pots; at other times you are obliged to open a pot you have left closed until then – like now with that 3-D.”
Our cover uncovered! Meet artist Oli-B
© Heleen Rodiers
(Black ink on paper, in progress, 2012 © Numbi)
His own highly distinctive style is the result of a lengthy evolution. “When I was younger, I used to do graffiti too, very much according to the codes. A time came when I didn’t feel it was me any more. I kept what I loved – forms and colours – and I started to flirt more with contemporary art. The letters developed in the direction of characters, the characters towards forms.”
Don’t sweat it!
Oli-B’s flow operates on various fronts. Visually, it is fluidity that predominates: gentle curves; abstract forms that both hint at, and escape from, the figurative; colours that are emphatic but balance each other; and a composition that binds everything together. “What most interests me about painting, and the reason why I paint, is the pleasure of the act, the creation of forms and colours. That is also the reason why my paintings are becoming more and more abstract, under the influence of the attraction that forms exert on me. It is important that it should flow and that even when the forms are all different, they work in connection with each other, that they live in the same spirit.”
His own highly distinctive style is the result of a lengthy evolution. “When I was younger, I used to do graffiti too, very much according to the codes. A time came when I didn’t feel it was me any more. I kept what I loved – forms and colours – and I started to flirt more with contemporary art. The letters developed in the direction of characters, the characters towards forms.”
Don’t sweat it!
Oli-B’s flow operates on various fronts. Visually, it is fluidity that predominates: gentle curves; abstract forms that both hint at, and escape from, the figurative; colours that are emphatic but balance each other; and a composition that binds everything together. “What most interests me about painting, and the reason why I paint, is the pleasure of the act, the creation of forms and colours. That is also the reason why my paintings are becoming more and more abstract, under the influence of the attraction that forms exert on me. It is important that it should flow and that even when the forms are all different, they work in connection with each other, that they live in the same spirit.”
(Hand painted canvas, in progress, 2012 © Numbi)
When Oli-B talks about colours, his eyes light up. “I have a real love affair with colour. Seeing colours on a support, the material. Nothing compares to the opening of pots of paint, seeing those colours, and almost wanting to eat them.” As if they were ingredients for a superb meal. He devours them, but remains conscious of balance. Like a good chef. "Comme un bon chef! [laughs] That is really intuitive, though. You add colours that unbalance the composition and that then make you want to add another colour. It is a continuous game of balance and imbalance.”
Niki de Saint Phalle's toffees, devouring colours: those are not the only times that Oli-B makes use of almost physical imagery when talking of his passion. His work dances, swings, makes music; it is alive. And it stares at you: “I very often work with the theme of the eyes. That saying that the eyes are mirrors of the soul may be really clichéd, but there is a lot of truth in it. The eyes give away a lot; they tell many stories. For me, that is the most expressive part of the body. In that way, my at times very abstract and organic forms are brought to life and given a personality.” Drops are another recurring visual element in Oli-B’s compositions. You could see tears, rain, water, or sweat in them, but maybe it is also the material that he is so passionately engaged with, the paint that is made visible as an element of the composition. “It is, a little bit, all those things together…except for the sweat. [laughs] With the eyes and the tears I add a little dash of drama, but very light. In order to give the picture’s sweetness a touch of bitterness, to add a little ‘but’. Not sharp or aggressive. My paintings don’t sting or bite. They have to flow.”
The funk phenomenon
The flow that binds Oli-B's pictures together can also be traced in his methodology and working process. “I work very intuitively. When I had just begun, when I had done a sketch and was satisfied with it, I could reproduce it, for example as a poster, so as to be able to stick it up in the streets. Now I work more on the basis of improvisation. That came about through experience, passion, and the fact that I get completely caught up in what I’m doing. When I paint, I make a drawing, in which I then intervene. The addition of the colours is a game, a puzzle. If everything is decided in advance, then there is no suspense any more, no excitement, no reflection. I find it much more interesting to see my work evolve and then to be able to return to it with great precision. Then it straightaway becomes a quest, for forms, for colours... Not fortuitously or thoughtlessly, but in a funky way.”
When Oli-B talks about colours, his eyes light up. “I have a real love affair with colour. Seeing colours on a support, the material. Nothing compares to the opening of pots of paint, seeing those colours, and almost wanting to eat them.” As if they were ingredients for a superb meal. He devours them, but remains conscious of balance. Like a good chef. "Comme un bon chef! [laughs] That is really intuitive, though. You add colours that unbalance the composition and that then make you want to add another colour. It is a continuous game of balance and imbalance.”
Niki de Saint Phalle's toffees, devouring colours: those are not the only times that Oli-B makes use of almost physical imagery when talking of his passion. His work dances, swings, makes music; it is alive. And it stares at you: “I very often work with the theme of the eyes. That saying that the eyes are mirrors of the soul may be really clichéd, but there is a lot of truth in it. The eyes give away a lot; they tell many stories. For me, that is the most expressive part of the body. In that way, my at times very abstract and organic forms are brought to life and given a personality.” Drops are another recurring visual element in Oli-B’s compositions. You could see tears, rain, water, or sweat in them, but maybe it is also the material that he is so passionately engaged with, the paint that is made visible as an element of the composition. “It is, a little bit, all those things together…except for the sweat. [laughs] With the eyes and the tears I add a little dash of drama, but very light. In order to give the picture’s sweetness a touch of bitterness, to add a little ‘but’. Not sharp or aggressive. My paintings don’t sting or bite. They have to flow.”
The funk phenomenon
The flow that binds Oli-B's pictures together can also be traced in his methodology and working process. “I work very intuitively. When I had just begun, when I had done a sketch and was satisfied with it, I could reproduce it, for example as a poster, so as to be able to stick it up in the streets. Now I work more on the basis of improvisation. That came about through experience, passion, and the fact that I get completely caught up in what I’m doing. When I paint, I make a drawing, in which I then intervene. The addition of the colours is a game, a puzzle. If everything is decided in advance, then there is no suspense any more, no excitement, no reflection. I find it much more interesting to see my work evolve and then to be able to return to it with great precision. Then it straightaway becomes a quest, for forms, for colours... Not fortuitously or thoughtlessly, but in a funky way.”
(Rework of the Laid Back Radio logo (acrylics on wood panel), 2011 © Numbi / Wall painted at Trace festival © Numbi / Numbi, hand painted poster, Brussels, 2011 © Numbi)
Funky: the word has been uttered. There is music in Oli-B’s work. It is danceable like a solid groove. So it is no surprise to learn that the young artist’s work has recently appeared on the sleeve of an album by the Brussels Spaniard Strand and that he is currently working with Tall Black Guy, a producer from Detroit. He made those contacts via Laid Back, a creative platform for artistic projects in the city, which he finds himself on the same wavelength as. For a while he shared a studio with the Brussels street artist collective Farm Prod, and La Fine Équipe was a group of friends that developed into acollective for work in the streets. Both in Brussels and elsewhere, Oli-B has made quite a lot of works with other street artists. In Ghent he provided entrails for a rabbit by street-art great ROA (together with Farm Prod's Fred); in rue Haute he and Denis Meyers collectively spray painted a wall; and recently, he and Grems did an imposing mural painting in Neerpede. “I love those collaborative projects, that activity. I like people, seeing new faces every day... Coming across someone in the street in Brussels, lots of people...then I feel I’m alive. And at the same time I have this urge to create, to develop my own identity, and I also like being on my own.”
He sees his work in the streets of Brussels as a necessity. “It is something that escapes any control. You yourself are the only one deciding what you do. The city becomes a playground, the bearer of the stories you want to tell. But it has to remain visible, because it is inspirational too. With my work outdoors I want to attract people’s attention, add something extra to their lives. In a natural way, without a lot of pressure.” If you come across Oli-B’s flowing art in the urban landscape, we advise you don’t resist the groove.
Funky: the word has been uttered. There is music in Oli-B’s work. It is danceable like a solid groove. So it is no surprise to learn that the young artist’s work has recently appeared on the sleeve of an album by the Brussels Spaniard Strand and that he is currently working with Tall Black Guy, a producer from Detroit. He made those contacts via Laid Back, a creative platform for artistic projects in the city, which he finds himself on the same wavelength as. For a while he shared a studio with the Brussels street artist collective Farm Prod, and La Fine Équipe was a group of friends that developed into acollective for work in the streets. Both in Brussels and elsewhere, Oli-B has made quite a lot of works with other street artists. In Ghent he provided entrails for a rabbit by street-art great ROA (together with Farm Prod's Fred); in rue Haute he and Denis Meyers collectively spray painted a wall; and recently, he and Grems did an imposing mural painting in Neerpede. “I love those collaborative projects, that activity. I like people, seeing new faces every day... Coming across someone in the street in Brussels, lots of people...then I feel I’m alive. And at the same time I have this urge to create, to develop my own identity, and I also like being on my own.”
He sees his work in the streets of Brussels as a necessity. “It is something that escapes any control. You yourself are the only one deciding what you do. The city becomes a playground, the bearer of the stories you want to tell. But it has to remain visible, because it is inspirational too. With my work outdoors I want to attract people’s attention, add something extra to their lives. In a natural way, without a lot of pressure.” If you come across Oli-B’s flowing art in the urban landscape, we advise you don’t resist the groove.
(Wall painted at Trace festival, 2011 © Numbi / Face, hand painted poster, Brussels, 2011 © Numbi)
Info:
www.oli-b.be
www.facebook.com/OliB.art
Info:
www.oli-b.be
www.facebook.com/OliB.art
Read more about: Expo
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