27 Questions for Dutch Painter Jacco Olivier. By Chloe Wyma.
What project are you working on now?
While typing this I am in San Antonio for a preliminary visit to Artpace. I am up for a residency in May so I have to think about that as an upcoming project. Besides that, when back home, I want to go to this natural zone inside my head where I think of nothing, don’t feel any pressure, and just fiddle around in paint to see where it takes me. Get some new source paintings done. Later I will review them and hopefully something new will come up.
For your first-ever public art commission in the US, you installed six outdoor animations in Madison Square Park. How does your work change when viewed outdoors?
The reality factor gets tested outdoors. Suddenly they have to compete with a tree. They have to be as real as the grass.
Half of the videos in Madison Square Park were created specifically for this project. What was your first impression of the park, and how did that translate into your animations?
In contrast to the rest of the city, the park is a place where I re-find my human scale. It’s a lovely fairytale-like park so I decided to make fairytale-like work for it, on a human scale.
Your process of photographing your paintings in transformation is often described as painterly animation. Do you see yourself more as a filmmaker or as a painter?
I consider myself a painter since that is what I do and what I think I understand. I have a problematical relationship with video art.
Which filmmakers or animators do you most admire?
Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, and Wes Anderson for their motion pictures; John Kricfalusi for Ren & Stimpy; and art-wise, I like the video registrations of the works by Roman Signer.
Your installation at Madison Square Park will be up through March and will be seen by literally thousands of passersby. How would you like people to respond to your work?
I hope it puts a smile on their face. Or even inspires them...