Born on the Atlantic coast of France, painter Olivier Suire Verley has traveled across the world to capture the charm of different places and peoples. Verley is an exceptional colorist, and his latest paintings, in a current solo exhibition across the United States, are sure to deepen one’s mood.
Whether he’s painting the beaches of Morocco, the streets of Paris, or the harbors of his hometown of La Rochelle, France, Olivier Suire Verley has little trouble capturing the essence of his subjects. Born into an artistic family — Verley’s grandfather was a renowned painter — Verley seemed destined to develop and impart his reflections of life onto the world from the beginning. Today, his paintings engage viewers immediately with their quilting and layering of highly saturated color. Once there, one is continually entertained by Verley’s play of abstraction, where well-defined figures and objects seem to flatten before lifting again in relation to their surroundings.
Olivier Suire Verley, “Before the Regatta,” oil and acrylic, 28.75 x 45.5 in. Addison Art Gallery
“A Night in Japan” is an excellent example of Verley’s mastery of color and his ability to capture the impression of a rainy night in the heart of a bustling city. Dabbles of color in a rainbow spectrum compose nearly half of the canvas from the bottom, creating an abstract pattern that makes the wetness of the street seem tangible. This undefined area flows beautifully into the sharp forms of bodies and neon advertisements. As in most of his work, Verley does not include faces or physical details to distinguish individuals, but his subtle attention to clothing, accessories, and color imbues each figure with character. Further, Verley has created a convincing sense of space and three-dimensionality, which is strengthened by the flattened, abstract arrangement of color at the bottom juxtaposed against the sharp geometric forms of the signs at the top.
“Olivier Suire Verley: One Man Show” opens at the Addison Art Gallery in Orleans, Massachusetts, on August 8.
To learn more, visit Addison Art Gallery.
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