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When he returns from his travels, Olivier Masmonteil rushes to his studio to paint his impressions directly on the raw canvas. In an urgency, of the kind that painters experience when faced with paint that is not yet dry, the artist paints fleeting sensations before they escape his memory.  He paints generic landscapes, sensations rather than impressions, textures rather than forms. These sensations are intertwined, like memories tangled in a capricious memory. These paintings are instinctive, free, and leave a strong impression. It is the titles that reveal their provenance, leaving the artist free to reveal to us what has left a strong pigmentation in his memory as a poet. Instead of painting from copy, he paints from memory, in a fire without artifice, producing chimerical visions, dream landscapes, sensations that will soon be gone.

Olivier Masmonteil, Andy Rankin