Article written by Charlie Leclerc-Lapointe

Entre les nœuds du temps, shows the work of the artist Olivier Vilaire “Oski”. His works are intimately linked to his Haitian roots and to the socio-cultural and political environment of the country where he grew up. The exhibition begins with the works Le vertige de la chute, Downloading and Damballah which constitute a series inspired by memories and photographs of the political conditions in Haiti. It bears witness to the impact that these traumatic images may have had on the artist.

Oski explains that he found a form of freedom in this series, which testifies above all to an inner language that allowed him to process this difficult information and to approach this form of chaos.

The three works exhibited in this first room also result from a feeling, a movement that is not reflected, but which would have come naturally through the creative process of the artist. The idea of ​​movement is particularly present, in particular by the spirals which are repeated on the different paintings, the lines and the colors which intertwine and give an impression of disorder.

At the heart of Creole specificity, this disorder aims to be creative, as illustrated by the concept of the chaos-world of the Caribbean poet and thinker Édouard Glissant, which anchors the curatorial practice of Joséphine Denis. This idea of ​​total upheaval is implemented in the spaces painted by Oski, where one accepts the unpredictable, the multiplicity, in order to create a chaos which does not want to be “chaotic”.

Referring to the notion of creolization, we are witnessing a mixture of cultures, arts and languages ​​that produces the unexpected.

Creatively, Oski designs spaces to meet and exchange different forms of knowledge, systems and cultures. These elements are also a way for the artist to continually transform himself, in order to move away from labels, and thus create a dynamic, open artistic identity. Without leaving aside the trauma and violence of the events, Oski’s work demonstrates the need for these exchanges, in order to understand and come together in this disorder.