Open the Whale of Love | Olivier Martineau
Quebec artist Olivier Martineau presents Open the Whale of Love, his first solo exhibition at the Galerie C.O.A in March-April 2017.
Martineau roams the streets of Montreal and the highways of Quebec, gleaning abandoned objects that inspire him. Stray wheel caps, umbrellas, toboggans and other discarded articles feed the artist’s whimsy. He then creates expansive tableaux through the aggregation of these objects and painting. A daily practice of automatic and spontaneous drawing complements his creative process. Everything is scribbled, traced, or written at a single go, with whatever implements are lying around, such as pencils, crayons, markers, coffee, and inks.
A multidisciplinary and self-taught artist, the unclassifiable Olivier Martineau started out building design objects. Furniture design quickly sparked an interest in sculpture, and Martineau began creating expansive zoomorphic pieces. This exploratory phase allowed him to develop his decidedly expressionistic facture while respecting the rough and crude qualities of the materials he favours. One main objective steers his creative process: finding equilibrium and harmony through chaos and incongruity.
