Nicolás Olivares

Biography

Nicolas Olivares’ practice celebrates the power an image has to manipulate our perception of reality. He is drawn to the use of pictorial language as a tool to deconstruct and reassess our surroundings.

Olivares is attracted to shaping the representation of landscapes and everyday occurrences with a certain ambiguity and unsettling strangeness, creating what he refers to as a ‘nowhere’ space.  Similarly, to the way a ghost story can alter a child’s perception of their surroundings, his works aim to play with ours by being both recognisable and impossible, that which we can identify but not access.

 Olivares’ ‘Nowhere’ spaces are suspended between the actual and the potential and so he provides us with a bridge to transform these spaces of otherness into a truth.

It is through their generic and deserted condition that Olivares allows us to deconstruct, and then appropriate them into a perceived reality. In this moment, a contact is formed between artist and viewer and the space is launched into existence.

 The series of paintings he presents with ICHANT are "imaginary landscapes", born from a combination of memories of his hometown Quilpué, and screenshots of the city via google street view. With this dichotomy gathered on the canvases between his memory and a removed reality, he creates a third landscape made of the antagonistic conjunction of the two. Existing and not existing at the same time, it is within this boundary that the contemplation of Nicolas Olivares' landscapes are defined.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2015

‘Insula: l’invention d’ailleurs’ / Maison du Chili, Paris, France

2014

‘La Chambre’ / Site-specific, 113, av du Gal Michel Bizot, Paris, France

2010

‘The Golden Bug’ / MAC Berlijn, Enschede, The Netherlands

‘Polidro’, Galería Animal, Santiago, Chile

Selected Group Exhibitions

2017

‘Good Bye Horses’ / PILOTENKUECHE Internationa art programme, HALLE 14, Leipzig, Germany

2016

‘Zögern’ / Salon Similde, Leipzig, Germany

‘Wild Horses’ / Galerie Bipolar, Leipzig, Germany

‘Degél’ / Ourcq Blanc, Paris, France

‘Huit Mois’ / Point Éphémère, Paris, France

2015

‘Novembre à Vitry’ /  Galerie municipale Jean-Collet, Vitry-sur-Seine, France.

‘Dibujo/Desenho’ / Galerie L’inattendue, Paris, France

2014

‘Parallèles Singuliers’ /L’inattendu, Galerie de la Maison des initiatives étudiantes. Paris France

‘Turbulences’ / Galerie Hall, Université Paris 8, Paris, France

2012

‘En medio: Art et Société’, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago, Chile

2011

‘Interacciones Múltiples’ (Interactions multiples) / Centro Cultural Palacio de la Moneda, Santiago, Chile

2010

‘Z/W’ / WolfArt Project Spaces, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2009

‘Espacio Compartido’ (Shared Space) / Balmaceda Arte Joven, Santiago, Chile

‘Realismo y no tanto’ – (Relative Realism) / Salon Tudor, Santiago, Chile

2008

‘Transitorio’ (Transient) / Galerie CNCA, Valparaíso, Chile

‘Cruces: Artistas Emergentes de Santiago’ (Crossings: Emerging Artists from Santiago) / Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), Valdivia, Chile