OLGA YAMEOGO
LA VIE QUI PASSE, LE TEMPS QUI S’ÉCOULE
« La peinture, comme une nécessité de me bâtir différemment… Peindre participe d’une liberté que je m’autorise enfin. »
When she started painting, around thirty years ago, Olga Yaméogo was already talking about nostalgia. In his vocabulary of color, in ochres, sienna, the moments of departure play an essential role. She already misses this Africa to which she is deeply rooted. Like those travelers who keep a little sand or dry grass in a handkerchief, his canvases show this forced displacement, the sadness that leaves no choice. One day, we leave... Then life takes its course. And a new balance is created. In a film dedicated to him by RFI (2019), the artist also talks about painting, “as a need to build oneself differently. Painting is part of a freedom that she finally allows herself. For a moment, she does it in secret, then she decides to show it.
All the beauty of his painting therefore lies in this blending of inspiration. At no time has she forgotten the land of origin. It is both in the light and this "matter" that the painting releases. But over the years, she became more and more attached to the expression of feelings. Her portraits explore very subtle areas that speak of a mother's love for her children. Minutes, between two ages, between two doors, the loneliness of a teenager, the fun of a young girl who discovers freedom. “It is this complexity of emotions that fascinates, because it works without effect. She masters her technique so well that a tiny touch of white in one eye gives the entire canvas its expression,” summarizes Kossi Homawoo, her friend for twenty years. In the most exact sense, fellow travelers, too.
The paintings that the gallery has selected reflect this affectionate concern for the passage of time. Africa is never far away. On the canvas, and next to the canvas, in the eyes of a child who has grown up, and whose sudden and reciprocal tenderness Olga renders. As Kossi says, "it's nothing, just a glint in the eye, or the beginning of a smile. But there is a whole humanity in it that we no longer know how to see. The art of Olga Yaméogo is in this permanent affection, in this listening to the other, and above all the ability to capture her emotion of the moment. The fragile and precious moment.
At a time when his work convinces both European and African galleries, these prints on Plexiglas could be a first contact with the work. Olga opens a subtle album, which speaks of displacement, the one that touches us all: the life that passes, the time that passes.
RC (ZO mag’)