By absorbing different styles, from Mannerism to Romanticism, Olinet creates exuberant, Baroque objects – ones that are half-finished and decadent, yet refined, where classical canons of beauty are decidedly not respected. What results is an impression of subterfuge and the subversion of good taste that leads to the cheerful and knowing fascination in anyone who lays eyes upon it.
In the small marina of Canal Saint-Félix, Vincent Olinet has set up Pas encore mon histoire (“Not my history, yet.”). With its powdery pink columns, gold leafing, cushions, drapery, satins, lace and embroidered beads, this work imitates traditional four-poster beds, recalling the comfort and luxury of a bygone era. And yet, though it seems straight out of a fairy tale, this floating and hallucinated, inaccessible mirage seems to float along the Erdre River, as if long-forgotten…
