Jacco Oliver

Jacco Olivier fuses painting and filmmaking by repeatedly reworking paintings in generous casual brush strokes and systematically photographing each development. The various stages are combined into projected animations. The resulting films are enigmatic and experiential – moving in and out of abstraction they reveal the traces and decisions made by the artist in the process of painting. The films are imagined as windows onto converging, and often elegantly simple, moments of daily life. On the Festival he presents the animations Bird, Rabbit Hole and Perpetuum.

Perpetuum (2022)

3 minute 15 seconds played in endless loop
Animation, color/9:32/mute

In this painted animation, a human figure is propelled upwards by the relentless waves, reminiscent of bouncing on a trampoline. Yet, this bounce is relentless, actively propelling upward, reaching for the stars and beyond.  It’s a portrayal of joy, inner resilience, and controlled surrender—a reflection of hope and pleasure found amidst the natural forces. The figure embodies a stoic yet playful spirit, harmonizing with he elements, playfully navigating the ebb and flow of life.

Rabbit Hole (2011)

3 minutes 10 seconds
HD Animation, color/16:9/mute

Originally commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, for an exhibition at Madison Square Park, December 2011-March 2012.

Rabbit Hole is presented on a monitor embedded in the ground. Viewed from above, Rabbit Hole depicts Olivier’s painterly brushstrokes gliding slowly outwards to the edges of the frame, a feeling of movement downward and inward, towards an uncertain end.

Bird (2011)

1 minute 15 seconds
HD Animation, color/16:9/mute

Originally commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, for an exhibition at Madison Square Park, December 2011-March 2012.

This video depicts a sequence of brightly colored birds, beginning with one that is recognizable as a parrot, and ending with simple flipbook style sketches of a generic bird in flight. For just a few seconds, one, then another bird is differently rendered in color and set in motion. The work fades out, then loops to the beginning. Painted from memory, the animation evokes the parrots that fly by the window of Olivier’s Amsterdam Studio. In Can Reon, Bird exists where a bird might be, in the air.

Jacco Olivier is a graduate of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam. He has exhibited worldwide, notably at ZKM, Karlsruhe; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY; Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht; MCA Denver, CO; The 56th Venice Biennial, Venice; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; New York City Center/New Museum, New York, NY, and GEM, The Hague. His art is held in many public collections, including Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; the Honart Museum, Tehran; the Zabludowicz Collection, London, and the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL. In 2019, he was awarded the Jeanne Oosting Prize for figurative painting in The Netherlands.