About Oliver Valsecchi
Oliver Valsecchi, born in Paris in 1979, now lives and works in Toulouse, where he studied at ETPA Photography School in 2007.
As a teenager, Oliver’s main interest was music, through which he discovered photography after taking photos to illustrate his record sleeves, although before enrolling in photography school, he explored the medium by taking self-portraits.
During his academic years, Oliver could experiment with light and the human body, which later became the outburst of his work. In 2010, his series Dust got him noticed and won him the Hasselblad Masters Award in 2012. Inspired by the chaos theory, this series depicts evanescences from Renaissance’s chiaroscuro. His twisted bodies are draped in a cloud of dust, giving them a surreal,nebula-like aspect, a symbol of birth and death.
Photographic Career and Series
Following the Dust series, Oliver will later come to a magnificent reflection of the human body through many other bodies of work. Composition, geometry, psychology, philosophy, and empathy are all echoed in his characters. Oliver attempts to portray human sentiments through their bodies, where light plays an influential role too. He adjusts the right tunes and attitude through shadows and contrasts as if composing music.
Light and body are Oliver’s tools to depict humans’ delicate, captivating and profound nature.
From planning to composing, from choosing the subject to the photo shoot, Oliver relies on instinct and intuition. As his images evoke death, birth, and maternity, all inevitable human conditions, he allows his inspiration to move with the same natural flow.
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