For more than 20 years, Olivier de Sagazan has developed a hybrid practice that integrates painting, photography, sculpture, and performance. In his existential performative series “Transfiguration”, which he began in 2001, Sagazan builds layers of clay and paint onto his own face and body to transform, take apart and disfigure his own face revealing an animalistic human. At once disquieting and deeply moving, this new body of work collapses the boundaries between the physical, intellectual, spiritual and animalistic senses. Olivier has exhibited widely in France, Canada, Brazil and Korea in art galleries, museums, and film festivals. With an Almost Cult Following online, and rave reviews about his expressive and inimitable style, it is no wonder to Sagazan’s remarkable “body art” work is featured in the non-verbal movie “Samsara”, the Sequel to “Baraka”, directed by Ron Fricke.
Olivier explains this work by saying “I am interested in seeing to what degree people think its normal, or even trite, to be alive.”