Olivier Catte

The Artist

Olivier CATTÉ
Portrait web

Born in 1957 in Petit Quevilly, Olivier Catté lives and works in Rouen.
He went for the first time in New York in 1985 where he was immediately fascinated by the energy of the city. It was not until 1999 that the artist will decide to use New York as a frame of his work. We often find the same places, but always different depending on the light or inspiration.
Architecture, energy, noise, speed, urban rhythms, smells, articulate all the tensions that trouble the city of New York.

During his travels, Olivier Catté search the smallest details that make New York City unique. He made sketches, notes, ideas, landmark perspectives and takes numerous photos. The emotions do the rest.
"Beyond the representation, I am interested in spiritual perception of urban spaces: my representations are mental images of a city mutating the likings hours and light I like the finished frame Manhattan composed. 2028 block its verticality and surrounded by water. I like to borrow mythical bridge that inspired painters, filmmakers, poets and musicians, to finally arrive in the improbable industrial areas of Queens and Brooklyn who offer us this wonderful panorama view of Manhattan ".
Since 2008, the artist works with corrugated cardboard recovery as support of his works.
"A first choice dictated by necessity and by the discovery of numerous plastic qualities in tune with what I wanted to express. Savings of support suffered first and then claimed because it allows me to get to the point in getting rid of the superfluous "
Without bonding, it traces, tears, peels and lacerating hollow cardboard, then adds here and there touches of paint to reveal cities (NYCartons, 2011) or imaginary cities (Interfaces, 2012). The echancrages or preexisting impressions on cartons, are used to give even more sense or relief.
Cardboard born in the late 19th century is the symbol of the consumer society. Once finished his first race it becomes recoverable and recyclable raw material for new uses. It represents the great communication and sometimes useless and modesty of its empty packaging condition. Although in the wake of the "arte povera" Olivier Catté is one of the artists who took the measure of the potential of communication and the power of this humble material. Olivier Catté ennobles the material turning it into support and actor of his artwork and the material the feeling is mutual strengthening evocative and poetic of his work.
The works made in trompe l'oeil Olivier Catté are rich interpretations. Its forms are moving away from the realistic approach to evoke through abstraction, with even more force imaginary spaces more pithy and representative than reality.
In an article on the website which is dedicated to Urbanitude Olivier Catté and that I can not match, it is said, "This approach can better reflect the duplicity of the urban space. From the air, it embraces a glance and we admire the curves, like a beautiful face. But as soon as you approach, it inevitably plunges into his arteries and we end up getting lost in its alleys. Using the humblest of materials, Olivier Catté reflects the deepest mystery of the city. Universe where the highest creativity of the men and the immensity of their vanity is joining "