Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery is delighted to present Echoes of Unseen, the highly anticipated solo exhibition by Olivier Souffrant, opening in Luxembourg on February 6, 2025.

Olivier Souffrant’s artistic practice is a dynamic blend of painting, printing, and collage. He delves into the emotional and physical depths of interiors through the intricate layering of paint and images sourced from social media. His work pays homage to African American masters like Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as European painters such as Botticelli, Van Gogh, and Picasso.

As the title suggests, Echoes of Unseen revolves around themes such as visibility, transparency, and the celebration of the apparent. Contrariwise, it ironically implies that there is more to the artworks than the eye can catch: despite being in plain sight, there are deeper meanings or layers of interpretation.

Having witnessed the 2004 coup d’état and the 2010 earthquake, Souffrant’s Haitian heritage and limited resources have driven him to utilize everyday materials like magazines, online publications, computers, and mobile phones in his creations. He employs digital techniques to achieve the collage effect, using Photoshop to repeatedly cut and paste images, scan magazine visuals, and incorporate free-source images from the internet. These images are then printed on canvas or aluminum panels, serving as an underpainting that he enhances with acrylic and oil paint.

Through these methods, Souffrant addresses themes such as the over-saturation of society with instant images and their appropriation. His work invites viewers to explore the layered depths of emotional and physical spaces, reflecting the complexities of modern life.

In a series of new works, Souffrant captures the nuances of human interaction, inviting viewers to ponder the circumstances leading to spontaneous moments and raising questions about the dynamics, the unpredictability of human behavior, and the inherent irony that everyday life’s unexpected twists reserve for us.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Port-au-Prince in 1994, Olivier Jean-Daniel Souffrant lives and works in New York City. He studied at the University of Illinois, Chicago, IL. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions with Stems Gallery, Paris, FR; Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, NY and Room57 Gallery, New York, NY. He has shown with institutions such as The Carr Center, Detroit, MI and the Harvey Museum, Talladega, AL. Olivier Souffrant presented his first solo exhibition at Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery in Dubai in April 2024. Olivier Souffrant will be part of the group exhibition When We See Us at BOZAR, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium in February 2025.