Born in 1963 in Lyon, Olivier Massebeuf entered the Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1982. After spending a year there, he decided to focus on studying English and left for London where he stayed for a year. On his return, he became independent and worked on science fiction illustration for a role-playing game magazine. In 1991, he returned to English when he became a teacher. Since then, he has carried out this activity in conjunction with his artistic practice, because he has never stopped painting. In 2004, he exhibited in Montreuil under the leadership of Amnesty International and met, in 2005, a London gallery owner, James Corless, with whom he had worked for around ten years.
Olivier Massebeuf’s painting is exclusively figurative, realistic and resolutely oriented towards the nude and the portrait. His pronounced taste for shades of gray and the absence of background places the subjects of his paintings at the center of attention, in a raw and direct relationship with the spectators. The finesse and precision of his features are vectors of a multitude of emotions, offered by his approach to movement.
Very early on, the artist was fascinated by the work of certain comic strip artists like Tardi and his use of color which would influence his own works. We could see similarities in the painting of Olivier Massebeuf with that of Francis Bacon or Lucian Freud. The minimalism of his backgrounds, his precise use of color, and the movement he breathes into the bodies he paints are reminiscent of certain works of these great masters of modern art, with the exception, perhaps, of the violence and brutality which characterizes the work of his predecessors. His painting is not that of a “tortured” artist, it celebrates and represents Man.
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Photo : DR
