The sea and sailing still inspire Olivier Messas, who continues to paint his sailing boats suspended between sky and sea in 2019.
[ Wind-driven on a sailboat... ] This series is inspired by a sailing boat trip in the South of France, between the island of Porquerolle and Saint-Tropez... "I know the heavens with lightning, and the rain and the storms, and the surf and the currents; I know the evening and the exalted dawn, and a people of doves, and I have sometimes seen what man thought he saw! "Rimbaud's "Le bateau drunk" may have inspired this series where it is about travel and sailing boats but not only... Passenger of his boat at the same time, prisoner and willing, adventurer of sensations sometimes soft, sometimes strong, Olivier lets himself be carried away by the wind and sets sail towards the unknown. He is not afraid of the implacable vagaries of nature but, on the contrary, allows himself to be seduced by all its merciful energies and intoxicated by wind, water and time.
His paintings recreate the ancestral pleasures of being on the water, of listening to the silence of the sea, of dreaming to the little blue music of the waves mixed with the wind in the sails. But with this "Sailing Spirit" series, it is above all about life: we are all long-distance captains, when pushed by the wind, when it hits the sails and the yacht leans abruptly at sea level and we want to reach its port. We are all reckless sailors, sailing in rough seas, freebooters jostled by waves and hollows, trying to hang on and not sink. Scared at the thought of drowning, we manoeuvre, we try to keep control of our boat so that it doesn't overturn, because of too big a wave or too violent a gust of wind that would tear our sails. Our life is a long sailboat that we have to constantly rebalance...
With this series, "Esprit voile", Olivier, invites us to take things into account, not to be afraid, to choose what is important, not to let ourselves be swallowed up by the little things, and just move on, on our drunk boat...
Written by W. Willebrod Wegimont, author, screenwriter. ]
