Olivier Lavorel, after having hesitated to make photography his profession, ends up learning drawing at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Rennes. He met the Navy painter Eric Bari who taught him a sense of rigour and observation.
He wanted to become the painter of the desert and to do this he left for the south of Morocco. He quickly realised that painting «the almost nothing of the desert» was not for him… But the discovery of the Medina of Fez was a revelation and he developed a real fascination for what he called «urban accumulations».
«I dreamed of being a desert painter,
but it was the city that caught my eye».
He travelled extensively and visited the great cities of the world. He is used to going alone but never without his camera, watercolours and felt pens. Beyond the splendour of the houses and monuments, it is the harmony of forms and colours characteristic of each city that interests him.
«A play of forms, lines and colours specific to each city
the harmony and unity of which
can be appreciated when one rises when one takes a little height…. «
Rigorous yet spontaneous, Olivier Lavorel’s painting shows the «organized disorder» of these cities built over time. The decorative motifs, the building materials used as well as the functional elements (shutters, gutters, chimneys, water tanks, etc.) are a true signature of each city.
For each of his paintings, a tight framing, generally without sky, a dense, complex and harmonious urban fabric. A sober palette. Facades, gables, roofs, terraces, which fit together and form an immense puzzle… or a labyrinth. A few small coloured spots sometimes, like signs of life: it is the laundry drying. There is no character in his paintings, although man is present everywhere.
«The most surprising thing is not that these cities are beautiful. The most surprising thing is that the beauty of these cities is ultimately based on a harmony that was not necessarily designed to produce beauty, but which results for many from very functional considerations».
