Olivia Gay
photography
Olivia Gay's images are faces, bodies, women's gaze, windows open towards their intimacy, both fragility and strength. A certain expression of loneliness despite the presence of other bodies. Frontal or distant, determined or offered, these gazes and bodies are moving, always. Her formal research is intrinsically related to her intellectual reflection. With her artistic work, she enriches her own perception of the real world, and brings her quest into communities where art is lacking but where life is there, full. Making women aware of their beauty, is that not the message that must be retained?
The Fairest Of Them All
A photographic diary co-written by Olivia Gay and Mariane Pearl, produced by Chime For Change, Kering Foundation – 2017.
__ Texts and reviews
Envisagées
_ par Raphaelle Stopin
Les visages d’Olivia Gay sont tous féminins. Ces femmes – ou devrait-on dire ses femmes tant elles semblent faire communauté autour d’elle, dans une sorte de sororité -, paraissent toutes volontaires ; quand bien même elles subissent, elles sont présentées agissantes. Olivia Gay les photographie dans leur cadre de vie, de travail, parfois de privation […]
Droit de regard, droit de cité
_ par Dominique Baqué
Les femmes d’Olivia Gay ne sont pas encore des révoltées, moins encore des militantes : mais elles persistent à exister, elles défient la cécité d’une société fracturée dans l’écart devenu incommensurable entre ceux que le hasard a dotés de tous les biens et qui, sans cesse, se montrent, s’exposent, s’affichent, et ceux qui n’ont rien, et dont l’on voudrait nous faire croire qu’ils ne sont rien. […]
Olivia Gay, le style documentaire
_ par Caroline Bach
Olivia gay emprunte clairement le style documentaire. Dominique Baqué, interrogeant justement la notion de document, écrit : «Or, il ne s’agit pas d’en revenir au document comme preuve infaillible. Pas plus que l’art, le document ne «donne» le réel : il le construit, lui donne sens, au risque des faux sens, des contresens, mais il n’est pas et ne sera jamais l’épiphanie du réel.» […]
Olivia Gay,
des photographies socio-icôniques
_ par Fabienne Dumont
Les séries d’Olivia Gay ont aussi une parenté avec les travaux des artistes féministes qui désiraient parler des conditions de vie des femmes, dans leur multiplicité, pour témoigner de leurs vécus, de leurs labeurs, de leurs désirs, pour humaniser des vies souvent meurtries, abîmées par le poids des contraintes sociales. […]
__ Exhibition views
__ News (exhibitions, conferences, events)
- Press review (selection)
Brigitte Trichet, A Woman at Work”: portrait of documentary photographer Olivia Gay, Hemeria – 24/04/2020
Cedric Citran, The Great East captured in the eye of five photographers, Grand EstHeritage – 20 Nov. 2019
Anne Elizabeth Philibert, “Envisagées (Considered)”: Olivia Gay photographs these women we don’t see, France televisions culture – 23 Apr. 2018
Zaha Redman, Hotel Drouot Gazette, 04/13/2018
Ellen Feldman, Women’s Review of Books, July/August, USA, 2018
Dominique Baqué, Droit de regard, droit de cité (Right to Look, Right of City), La Revue, MEP, Paris 2018
Clementine Mercier, A Woman and Women, Liberation, 06/2017
Emilie Chaudet, The early mornings, Disappearing with dawn, France Culture,15/06/2017
Claire Guillot, Et voici le travail (And Here’s the Job),M Le Monde magazine, 05/2013
Carole Boulbès, 2009, year of France in Brazil, ART PRESS, 2009
Biography
Olivia Gay was born in 1973 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. She is a graduate of the New England School of Photography, Boston, USA and the National Graduate School of Photography in Arles, France.
His work has been exhibited at the European House of Photography in Paris, at the Château d’Eau Gallery in Toulouse. Her work has been highly awarded so far, by: Grand East Photographic Mission, HSBC Special Joy Hendericks Award, National Center for Plastic Arts – France, MAST Bologna Foundation, Kodak Critics’ Award.
She lives and works in Normandy and has been preparing a PHD in art at RADIAN, Normandy, since September 2020.
2019 Incarcerated women: Interior views, Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, New York
2018 Envisagées(Considered,) European House of Photography, Paris
Envisagées (Considered), Le Parvis, Pau
2017 Resistance, Château d’Eau Gallery, Toulouse
2016 The workers of L’Aigle and Lantellières de Calai,s,, Festival Pluie d’Images, Brest
2013 Contemplacoes, Gallery of the French Alliance, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2011 Mirabilia, Château d’Eau Gallery, Toulouse
2009 Dentellières et Ouvrières, School of Fine Arts, QPN Nantes
2008 The workers from l’Aigle, Space of tanners, The Eagle
2008 La Redoute, Transphotograpics, The Public Condition, Roubaix
2006 Photographing for See, Plume Gallery, Paris
2018 Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night, Galerie Polaris, Paris
2016 Attitude Prize, Polaris Gallery, Paris
2016 Landskrona Foto, Isabelle Darrigrand Collection, Sweden, (Christian Caujolle Commission)
2015 Inmates, In search for identity, Abbey of Jumièges, Festival Normandie Impressionism, (Commission Jean-luc Monterosso)
2015 GD4 Art Award, Mast Foundation, Bologna, Italy
2013 “ Quel travail ?! (What work?!) “, Ile de France Photographic Centre, Pontault-Combault
2012 Contemplaoces, Web Prize 2011, Centro Cultural Correios, Rio de Janiero, Brazil (Agnès de Gouvion Saint Cyr Commission)
2012 Dentellières, Normandy Museum, Caen,
2011 GD4 Art Prize, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, Italy
2009 A procura de um olhar, Madonnas of Bahia, Pinacoteca do Estado Sao Paulo, Brazil
Kolondimba, National Museum of Anthropology, Madrid
Dentellières, Museum of Fine Arts, Alençon
2008 Gift of Life, Chapel of the Pity Salpétrière, Paris
2005 Live Models, Riparte Art Festival, Moving Gallery, Rome, Italy
2001 Jineteras, Imaginiques Festival, Langon
2019 Photographing Communities, with Fannie Escoulen, CNAP, Jeu de Paume.
“Listento the Artist”, Rouen Museum of Fine Arts.
2018 Meeting with Olivia Gay, with Yannick Leguillanton, European House of Photography, Paris
2017 Culture and Work, a necessary dialogue, Labour Exchange (CGT, Régis Debray and E.Pignon Ernest), Paris.
2015 Foto/Industria Biennale, with Urs Stahel, Mast Museum, Bologna, Italy,
2014 Meeting with Olivia Gay, People’s University of Photography, Mérignac Media Library.
2013 Body standards as an issue of otherness, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis
2020 Workshops of January, ESAD Orleans and CCNO.
Cross-cutting workshop, BTS and ESA Rocailles, Biarritz
2019 Guest artist, ESA Rocailles Biarritz
2018 Guest artist, ESA Rocailles Biarritz
Cross-cutting workshop, BTS and ESA Rocailles, Biarritz
“Living” Agriculture schools, Land of the Loire
Contact us
Please feel free to call or e-mail us for any further question.
If you are interested in the the work of this artist, you can come at the gallery for documents our to see the works.
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