“Deluge”

Olly French was born in 1972 in Cape Town, and studied at Michaelis School of Fine Art.

Olly paints mostly abstract images that are an attempt to translate emotion,
and a personal experience of the world around him; with a strong desire to capture a thought, movement or meaning. recurring themes are landscapes and how they specifically relate to a sense of place and identity, or disconnection and sense of alienation or longing.

"I am almost obsessed with the relationship between colour and space, i try with every piece to bring a sense of depth, a transformation of a flat surface into an imagined space where i am free to roam and explore, to focus or to dream, to control or let go."

As a practicing interior designer, my perception of how texture and materiality, colour, light and shade, foreground and back ground and composition are an essential component of how I relate to space. both of my practices inform each other.

there is a sense of affinity that we all have stemming from the relationship between who and where we come from. my work is an attempt to explore this relationship through paint in the form of line, gesture and the attempt to capture a moment in time.