Biography:
Pierre-Olivier Arnaud was born in 1972. He lives and works in Lyon. His work is based on images seen as patterns but tending to disappear. He asks questions on the status that such collected images can have, an unclear and precarious status partly on account of his refusal to define himself as a photographer. He does not see himself as a person who would shoot an image of something in order to propose it to others in a literal and immediate way. Pierre‑Olivier Arnaud works on the invisible part of images, on all that they have that is fragile and non-compliant, as well as all the representations and interpretations that they may generate. Pulling away from the concrete perusal of an image, he produces a multitude of patterns; very often abstract, almost always in black and white, playing with pre-existing visions and undermining the visible sublime. Thus dissolved, an image «first seems enfeebled, but on second glance we are drawn back to it in an effort to look at its details»(1). Pierre‑Olivier Arnaud’s works are a somewhat dark, direct and honest vision of the world; inviting us to look at things differently, going beyond the evidence of glossy aesthetics and penetrating the identity itself of an image.
Recent solo shows: Premiers Matériaux, Galerie Skopia, Geneva (2018); un autre halo, Art : Concept, Paris (2016); Abstract, Art : Concept, Paris (2014); Halo, Galerie Skopia, Geneva (2013); A Long Distance Call, Optica, Montréal (2012).
His work is featured in the following public collections : MAMCO, Geneva ; Fonds Cantonal de Décoration et d’Art Visuel, Geneva ; Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain, Geneva ; Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne ; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris ; Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain, Paris ; FRAC Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-Lès-Rouen.
(1) See exhibition : Biens Communs III, Mamco , Geneva, cycle l’Éternel Détour, 2013
