Démarche artistique
La matière première de ma peinture est la photographie. Jour après jours je crée un répertoire d'image très proche du journal intime. Lors de mes voyages, je parcours les villes en m'intéressant principalement aux zones urbaines dites en "retrait", les quartiers semi-industriel ou en désolation.
Ces images sont des plans fixes qui forment des scènes vides ou l'action est déjà passée ou en devenir. Il en est de même pour les portraits, qui se rapprochent d'ailleurs plus d'une situation. j'essaye toujours de capter ce moment entre deux, ou l'absence si présente mais impalpable reste figé dans le temps.
Il y a là mon éloge certaine du moment, de la banalité, comme une sorte de lutte contre cette nostalgie quasi immédiate de ce présent déjà mort.
Une fois sélectionnées ces images sont transférées sur la toile, j'aime cet état de transit où la photographie devient alors une représentation picturale.
Mon travail en peinture est alors d'élaborer par des formes graphiques et narratives les possibilités inhérentes de l'image photographique.
In Ayline Olukman, there is a permanent urge for travel, a compelling desire for unknown territory, discovery and the encounter of different places and people. This urge is not driven by tourism but by the desire to live
A unique and personal experience, challenging the usual cliché of towns and countries. She compares her own on-site discovery with the cliché, pre-conceived ideas prior
to the trip and the typical portrayals of glossy magazines. An initial dream blooms and grows with Ayline Olukman, a preliminary vision, an exhilaration for life. What transpires is a definite thirst for freedom. She takes to the road and paves her own way. Alone. Within a few weeks and months she experiences her own personal trip, that of being on the road on an initiatory Kerouac like journey.
She does not attempt to show the obvious. Her photos are often neutral, even austere. They capture scenes for which only she knows the true meaning. She needs to see for herself, to soak up the atmosphere and to experience the place in its entirety and create her own perception. It soon becomes clear that she is turning the image around and showing it from a different angle. There is a David Lynch atmosphere in her works, saturated colours covered in varnish to make the film look used : unlikely abandoned places, warehouses, back street slums, quite the opposite to usual glamour scenes. She loves this delicate beauty, that of the untrodden path, not immediately apparent and which she tries to uncover using her artistic skills.
Back at the workshop, she plays with the image, redefining it with paint. Successive layers, glazes and material experiments distort the original scene. Her aim is not to destroy but to disturb it just enough to create a subtle balance. She achieves contrasts with touches of colour, reconstructing the scene to attain a new dimension, beyond any temporal concept, finally representing her very first feeling for the place.
